Relative Vimes
by Morwen Tindomerel
Summary: Sam Vimes was not an only son.
1. Chapter 1

BThe man rolled over in bed and opened his eyes. He looked around the room, 'hmmm, a tent. I live in a tent do I?' He swung his legs to the ground, a blue and white uniform was neatly laid out on a nearby camp stool. 'Ah, I'm a soldier am I? In whose army? Oh well, no doubt it'll come to me.' He looked at the label inside the collar of the shirt. 'S. Vimes. Yep, that's me all right.' But the shoulder boards on the coat stopped him cold. 'Colonel! I'm a colonel? But I don't like officers!' Somehow he was quite sure of that, however Lancre-cheesed his memory.

He buckled the sword belt round his waist and strode outside. Rows of neat white tents stretched away in straight rows centered on a flagpole. The flag flapping overhead was blue with a big white question mark between a one and a three. He glanced at the flash on his sleeve. Yep, they matched. He was in the right place, wherever this was. Not his usual place though. He vaguely remembered a lot of sand and a mudbrick fort. While there was plenty of sand here too it was the wrong color and consistency and there were a whole lot more people. Hundreds - maybe thousands - of tents were laid out in neat squares beyond the bounds of his own camp with dozens of flags flying over them. They seemed to be part of an army - and that wasn't usual.

A small, balding man of indeterminate age sat at a table under the flag, his permanently worried baby face frowning at the sheaf of papers in his hand. S. Vimes walked over to him.

He looked up. "Good morning, Colonel Vimes."

"Good morning," he said. Read the sign on the desk. "Adjutant, the day I make general I want you to shoot me and put me out of my misery.

"Yes sir," the man answered. "I've made a note of that."

"Good. Now, where in the hells are we and who are all these people?"

"We're at Gebra, sir. That's Mount Gebra there, those walls are the city and the sea is that way. We are part of the army of Klatch, sir, assembled to repel the invader."

Vimes lit an evil smelling D'reg cigar. "And who would that be?"

"Ankh-Morpork, sir."

"Ah. In desperate need of sand are they?"

The Adjutant checked his copious notes. "Something to do with an island, sir. Place called Leshp."

Vimes shrugged. "Ours is not to reason why. I suppose we've got orders?"

"Yessir, here they are, sir." The Adjutant shuffled paper and handed over a clutch of pages.

Vimes gave them a quick scan. "I see we've drawn scout duty, big surprise. Map? Oh, here it is. Hmmm....." He sank into a brief brown study. "Right. Officer's call in five, Adjutant, we've got work to do."

Five minutes later Vimes was facing a double row of slightly bewildered men wearing major, captain and lieutenant pips. "Good morning, gentlemen. In case you're not up to speed yet we are the 13th Regiment of the Klatchian Foreign Legion and we've got a job of work to do." A few men nodded, a few looked relieved, the majority continued bewildered.

"Everybody got his notebook?" This time all the white kepis nodded, pencils poised. Vimes turned to the map and tapped a rather nice little drawing of a fort with his pointer. "That's Gebra." The pointer shifted to a blue square at the far end of a series of colored blocks. "This is us, way out on the right wing. Command says the enemy, that's this black oblong here, is sending out skirmishing parties and we've drawn the short stick and get to do something about it. Major Red!"

The mesmerized ranks stirred and looked at each other uncertainly. Vimes sighed, "Check your sleeves, who's got the Big Red One and major pips?" A hand rose. "Right. You take Red companies One, Three and Five hubwards. Major Yellow," he said and leveled his pointer at a stocky young fellow in the front row," you take your One, Three and Five rimwards. Fan out in a skirmish line, no more than a quarter of a mile between platoons. Got that?" Pencils scribbled frantically, stabbed little full stops and assorted eyes looked up. The bewilderment was gone. Fuzzed memories had cleared and slotted neatly into place.

"Good. I'll take Red and Yellow Twos and Fours down the center, and we'll see what we catch."

-----

"Excuse me," Vimes said politely to the sand colored man in sand colored robes before him. "What did you say this village was called?"

"Beersheepa, Offendi."

"Good name." Vimes looked around at the sand colored hovels with more sand colored people peering nervously out windows and doors at him. "Have you seen any other soldiers this morning? Foreign ones I mean."

"Just you, Offendi."

"Good," Vimes was saying when a scout hurried up the sand drifted excuse for a street, visibly excited.

He slid to a halt, saluted, "Colonel, enemy cavalry approaching, sir!"

"Horse cavalry, on this sand?"

"Yessir!"

"Damnfools. All right, let's see them off shall we?" He turned to his bugler. "Sound the rally." The boy looked at him uncertainly. "Tira-Tira-Tira-Lirra-Lou," Vimes prompted.

Legionaries wearing Big Red Ones and Big Yellow Twos slid and staggered over the dunes from all directions to form a volley line three deep just clear of Beersheepa.

"FIRST LINE ON YOUR STOMACHS!" the Regimental Sergeant Major bawled. "SECOND ON YOUR KNEE, THIRD ON YOUR FLAT FEET! GET RID OF THAT CHEROOT, LEGIONNAIRE, THIS AIN'T NO DAMN PICNIC! DRESS THAT LINE! I SAID DRESS THAT LINE!"

Vimes took up his own position in the center rear beside the flag and drew his saber. The junior officers, a captain and several lieutenants, formed on him unsheathing their own blades. Steel glinted in the hot sunlight. Plumed helmets bobbed above the dunes in front of the line, followed by the heads of horses blowing hard as they wadded fetlock deep in the soft sand.

"Hold your shot," Vimes ordered. "Give him a chance to think the better of it."

"HOLD YER SHOT!" the Sergeant Major shouted, and was echoed by sergeants up and down the lines:

"Hold yer shot!"

"Wait fer orders!"

"The Colonel said 'Hold!' Stinky!

"That Man! Do you still have your safety on?"

Across the way the enemy horse staggered into a ragged line. "Sir, I think they mean to charge us," said the Adjutant.

"Sure looks like it, the godsdamned fool!" Vimes threw away his cigar, raised his saber high.

"Ready."

"READY!"

The line of horsemen began to flounder down the dunes, about half the horses went down.

"Aim."

"AIM!"

Two thirds of the cavalry were down now, men and mounts in tangled heaps. The few still upright kept coming.

"Loose!"

"LOOSE!"

Steel quarrels flew knocking the handful of remaining horsemen out of their saddles. Second and third volleys passed over the heads of the recumbent and cursing enemy to bury themselves in the sand well beyond.

"Cease!"

"CEASE!"

The legionnaires completed reloading and stood at ready. Vimes walked through his lines to the downed pennon and the elegantly uniformed officer lying beside it. A quarrel had gone clean through his gilded toy of a breastplate. His helmet had rolled a few feet away revealing a young, astonished face.

The Colonel looked bleakly down at him. "A fool boy, I should have known." He raised his voice, "Oi! Who's in command here?"

By now the fallen troopers were on their feet, except for a handful of dead and rather more wounded. All those with their eyes open were staring at Vimes with a sort of glazed shock. He was not unfamiliar with that look but usually he got it when he was covered with blood and waving a saber in one hand and a pike in the other. He glanced down at himself. Nope, no blood, and slid his saber back into its scabbard. "I want to know who's in command. Now!"

A trooper wearing corporal's stripes looked around uncertainly, then raised a slightly shaking hand. "I think I am, sir."

Vimes nailed him with a look. "I am prepared to accept your surrender."

"S-sir?"

The man was clearly in shock. Vimes gentled his tone. "I really do advise you to surrender, Corporal."

"Oh! Oh, yessir!" Sword belts hit the ground.

"Wise decision, Corporal. Legionnaires Stand Down!"

"STAND DOWN!"

"Stand Down!"

"Stand Down, don't mean you can smoke you horrible man!"

"That Man! What did I tell you about that safety?"

Vimes rolled his eyes upward. Good old That Man. Him he could remember. He only wished he could forget! "Your wounded will be seen to," he told the trembling corporal. "Surgeon forward!"

"SURGEON FORWARD!" The Sergeant Major echoed deafeningly. Vimes winced. The man had lungs like a bellow, and never spoke below one.

---

The man opened his eyes and rolled over in bed. He looked around the room. It was a tent. 'I live in a tent do I?' He swung his legs to the ground. The blue and white uniform laid out on a nearby camp stool caught his eye. 'Ah, I'm a soldier am I? In whose army? Oh well, no doubt it'll come to me.' He picked up the shirt and looked inside the collar. 'S. Vimes. 'Yep, that's me all right.' But the shoulder boards on the coat stopped him cold. 'Colonel! I'm a colonel? but I don't like officers!' Somehow he was quite sure of that, however Lancre-cheesed his memory.

He buckled on his sword and went outside. Rows of neat white tents stretched away in straight rows centered on a flagpole. The flag flapping overhead was blue with a big white question mark between a one and a three. He glanced at the flash on his sleeve. Yep, they matched. He was in the right place, wherever this was. He saw hundreds - maybe thousands - of tents laid out in neat squares beyond the bounds of his own camp with dozens of flags flying over them. Seemed they were part of an army. That was interesting

A small, balding man of indeterminate age sat at a table under the flag, his permanently worried baby face frowning at the sheaf of papers in his hand. S. Vimes walked over to him.

He looked up. "Good morning, Colonel Vimes."

"Good morning," he said and read the sign on the desk. "Adjutant, the day I make general I want you to shoot me and put me out of my misery.

"Yes sir," the man answered. "I've made a note of that."

"Good. So, what gives, Adjutant?"

"We're at Gebra, sir, part of the army of Klatch assembled to repel the invader."

Vimes lit an evil smelling D'reg cigar. "And who would that be again?"

"Ankh-Morpork, sir."

"Right. Something to do with an island isn't it?"

"That's right, sir." The Adjutant shuffled his notes. "We've got prisoners, sir."

"Dear me. Under guard I trust?"

"Oh yes, sir. And enemy wounded, sir."

"Any of our own?"

"No, sir."

"Good. We seem to be doing well, Adjutant."

"We usually do, sir," the man answered with a look that made it a compliment.

Vimes cleared his throat, embarrassed. "So, orders?"

The Adjutant handed over a few sheets. "There's going to be a battle, sir."

"That's nice," Vimes said absently, reading.

----

Figures tiny with distance rode from both battle lines to a tent set up in no-man's land. Colonel Vimes lowered his spy-glass. "Looks like there's going to be a parley."

"STAND EASY, SIR?" the Sergeant Major bellowed.

Vimes winced and sidled a few steps away. "Yes."

"STAND EASY!"

"Does that mean there may not be a battle, sir?" Major Red asked.

"I certainly hope so," Vimes replied. "I don't fancy fighting under the noon sun." There was a reason D'regs always attacked at dawn. He lit a cigar.

It was half smoked when the Adjutant said, "Sir? Something seems to be happening down there."

Vimes put his glass to his eye. A small party of D'regs on camelback were charging across the sands towards the parley tent. Under a white flag? "Somebody's in a big hurry to surrender," he muttered. Gods only knew who. A party detached itself from each army, riding to intercept, missed and collided with each other. Vimes winced. "That's gotta hurt." The eager surrenderers pulled to a sliding halt in the shade of the parley tent, dismounted and went inside.

"What's going on, sir?" Major Yellow asked.

"Damned if I know," Vimes answered, eye still glued to his spy glass.

After a long moment a messenger hurried from the parley tent running back to the Klatchian lines. Another came out and went towards the Enemy. Then a tall, white robed figure emerged from the tent followed by several others. Red hair flamed in the hot sunlight. He began to shout, moving slowly between the lines.

A runner came panting up to Vimes, eyes slightly wild. "Orders to stand down, sir. We're under arrest."

"Beg pardon?"

"Under arrest, sir."

"By whom?"

"The Ankh-Morpork City Watch, sir!"

Vimes stared at the man, then turned to his Adjutant. "Can they do that?"

"Orders are to stand down," the messenger repeated.

The Adjutant shrugged. "I guess they can, sir."

"Ours is not to reason why," Vimes muttered to himself. "Tell the men to stand down, Sergeant Major."

"STAND DOWN!"

The big redheaded man in white robes finally came within earshot of the Legionnaire's position. "I am Captain Carrot of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch!" he was shouting. "You have the right to remain silent! Anything you say will be taken down in my notebook and used at your trial! You have the right to trial by combat! You have the right to trial by ordeal! Personally I don't recommend either! You have the right to demand the presence of a doctor at your questioning! Do you understand what I've just told you? Sound off! Do you understand?"

Vimes exchanged a helpless look with his officers. "Tell the man yes, Sergeant Major."

"YES!"

"Excellent!" The redheaded man turned back towards the center of the lines.

"Adjutant, have we ever been arrested before?" Vimes asked.

The little man riffled through his notebooks. "Not so far as I can see, sir."

Vimes shrugged. "Oh well, not our problem is it? Issue the Orakh ration, Sergeant Major, and have the men brew up some coffee."

"YES, SIR!"

-----

Vimes had sipped enough Klatchian coffee to be only slightly mellow by the time word of Ankh-Morpork's unconditional surrender reached the far right flank. The Legionnaires were in fact all that was left of that wing of the army, the desert levies having decided to go home since nothing seemed to be happening.

"So, Ankh-Morpork arrests us all, then surrenders," Vimes mused. "Does that strike you as slightly odd, Captain, or is it just me?"

The officer of Prince Cadram's Own who'd brought the word shrugged, spreading his hands helplessly. "Nobody can understand it, Colonel. But they say all Morporkians are mad."

"Seems like they say right. What should I do about my prisoners?"

The captain shook his head. "No idea, sir."

Vimes got carefully to his feet and took a few experimental steps forward. Yep, he could walk straight. "I guess I'd better go and ask then."

The center of the line had become a dusty scrum of struggling figures, brightly colored uniforms now an identical shade of sand. Vimes might have mistaken it for a battle if he hadn't spotted the ball sailing through the air. The red haired man in white strode through the chaos blowing a whistle. Vimes circled round to get to the parley tent. Voices rose and fell inside. He stepped through the unguarded flap and came to attention, waiting to be noticed.

He was. Prince Cadram's wandering eye froze on him. General Ashal turned to look and fell silent. The tall thin man who somehow managed to look both dignified and intimidating in a dusty white robe and red fez joined in the group stare. It was that glazed look again, Vimes realized, and damn it he didn't have a drop of blood on him nor a weapons either.

He saluted. "Sir! Colonel Vimes of the Foreign Legion, sir! Requesting orders on the disposal of prisoners, sir!"

There was a long and tingling silence broken at last by the thin man in the fez. "Colonel Vimes," he said carefully, as if tasting the name. "You have prisoners do you?"

"Yes, sir. Company Bravo of Lord Selachi's Hussars. We had a small affray with them yesterday. I regret to report that Captain de Worde and six of his troopers lost their lives. Fourteen wounded, all doing well, sir."

"I'm sure they are, Klatchian doctors are justly famous for their skill."

"Surgeon's an Omnian, sir. Says he's got Om on his side."

"Ah." The man in the fez looked at Prince Cadram. "May I assume any prisoners will now be released?"

"You may, Lord Vetinari," General Ashal answered.

He unfolded himself from his chair. "I believe we've covered everything. With your permission, Your Highness, I will accompany Colonel Vimes back to his unit to claim our distressed citizens."

"That will be fine," said General Ashal.

"Colonel." Lord Vetinari led the way out of the tent. He eyed Vimes thoughtfully as they circled the football scrum. "May I ask why you joined the Klatchian Legion, Colonel?"

"To forget, sir," Vimes answered automatically, still wondering about those odd looks.

"Forget what?"

"No idea, sir. I've forgotten. I hope it wasn't a woman, though. That'd be so damned cliche."

"Yes it would." Vimes was uncomfortably conscious of a long, thoughtful scrutiny. Finally Vetinari said, "I believe you have family in Ankh-Morpork, Colonel. You might consider looking them up. I suspect you will find Klatch far from hospitable from now on."


	2. Chapter 2

The man opened his eyes and found himself staring up at a cracked plaster ceiling. Rolling on his side he saw whitewashed walls, an empty shelf over a bare wooden desk and a blue and white uniform laid out on a straight backed chair. Of course he never knew where he was when he woke up in the morning but a vague feeling of dislocation suggested that this was not where he usually found himself.

He got up and consulted the tab inside the collar of his shirt. S. Vimes. The name felt comfortable anyway. So did the worn and faded uniform coat but the shoulder boards gave him a bit of a shock. A colonel? Him? How in hells had that happened? He didn't even like officers!

An unpainted wooden door led to a larger room. A small man, baby face screwed in an expression of perpetual worry sat at a desk under a blue flag with a one and a three flanking a question mark. Vimes looked at his sleeve. Yep, he was in the right place.

The man sitting behind the sign reading 'Adjutant' looked up. "Good morning, Colonel Vimes."

"Good morning, Adjutant," he answered. "Son, the day I make general I want you to shoot me and put me out of my misery."

"Yessir, I've made a note of that."

Vimes took a foul smelling D'reg cigar from his breast pocket and lit it. "So, where in the hells are we this morning?"

The Adjutant didn't bother to consult the papers he'd been reading. "The Fist of Gebra, sir. It's a fortress near the Circle Sea. The war's over, sir."

Vimes ran a quick mental assessment of his condition; no wounds, no sore spots, he didn't even feel tired. "We fought a war?" he asked incredulously.

"Not exactly, sir. The enemy surrendered unconditionally without giving battle."

"Good for them." Vimes took another puff of his cigar. "Orders?"

"None, sir."

The Colonel nodded. "In that case general inspection in thirty."

"Yessir."

-----

Vimes was making the lives of the 1st platoon, Company D, Yellow Battalion a misery when a quintet of bearded men in the shiny armor of the Prince's Own marched in. He wheeled around to give them the eye and was pleased to see the officer in the lead wilt, ever so slightly.

"Yes?" Vimes said, icicles dripping.

The major cleared his throat. "Colonel S. Vimes, 13th Regiment Klatchian Foreign Legion?"

"That's me."

Vimes saw the young officer's adam's apple bob. "You are under arrest, sir."

"Am I?" the Colonel shot a glance over his shoulder. The Legionnaires lined up in two rows at the feet of their iron bedsteads were puffing up like fighting cocks about to attack, a few had even drawn steel. "At ease!" Nobody moved. "I said 'at ease' boys. That includes you That Man!" He kept his eye on them until the ranks had reluctantly deflated to their usual size and assorted daggers and sabers been put back where they belonged.

He turned politely back to the guards officer. The man was sweating, so were the rankers behind him. "You were saying, Major?"

"Sir, I have been ordered by his Highness to place you under arrest and conduct you to the palace."

A growl came from behind Vimes. "Silence in the ranks!" he snapped. Then said politely to the Major. "You wouldn't happen to have a warrant or something would you? I'm kind of curious about what I've done. You know us Legionnaires, memory like a sieve."

"No sir," the man said feebly. Rivulets ran down his face like he was standing under a waterfall and rings of white showed around the brown of his eyes. "Sorry, sir. You will please come with us, sir."

"Of course, of course," Vimes said soothingly. He turned his head slightly. "Adjutant!"

"Sir!" heels clicked.

"Tell Major Red he's in command and have him read the log."

"Yes, sir!"

Vimes took a cigar from his pocket, lit it carefully and blew out a smoke ring. "Shall we go, Major?" he said at last.

Vimes continued to puff meditatively as he walked between his guards out of the big barracks block housing the 13th. It had the advantage of keeping his hands in plain sight. Scared men can be dangerous and this lot was pretty near wetting their breeches. His Legionnaires had frightened the seven hells out of the Prince's Own and Vimes was that proud of them. They walked down the narrow street running between the three story barrack buildings and across a large parade ground toward a foursquare building all a-flutter with green and gold banners.

Vimes tried to search his memory, but you can't search what isn't there. He had to admit it was perfectly possible that he'd somehow pissed the Prince off. He knew he had problems with authority in spite of being authority according to the pips on his shoulder - and how that had happened he'd love to know. Yeah, he could believe he'd done something to get himself arrested. What he couldn't believe was that the Adjutant would have failed to fill him in on it. That was his job after all, reminding Vimes of what'd happened the day before. Oh well. Sooner or later they'd have to tell him what he'd done - wouldn't they?

Vimes and his guards went through the big iron bound door, down a couple of plain whitewashed corridors to a second door flanked by more men of the Prince's Own. Vimes threw away the butt of his cigar and straightened his coat. The door opened and they walked into a blaze of color from silken hangings on the walls and thick carpets on the floor. The Seriph of Klatch huddled in his white robes on the throne facing the door. Catching sight of Vimes he bounced to his feet and advanced screaming:

"Poisonous Vindictive Serpent! Son of a Thousand Fathers! Misbegotten Offspring of a Mangy Camel! Treacherous Sand Dwelling Louse! Eater of Filth!"

Vimes admired Prince Cadram's command of invective and wondered what the hells he could have done, the man was practically foaming at the mouth. When the Prince finally stopped to breath Vimes saluted. "Colonel Vimes, Klatchian Foreign Legion, reporting as ordered, sir."

"Traitor!" the Prince screamed, having apparently run out of more colorful names as well as breath. Spittle flew from his lips.

"I don't remember, sir," Vimes said stolidly. "If Your Highness would be so good as to remind me?"

The Seriph's answer was shrieked at pitches that must have set dogs howling for miles around. Those parts audible to human ears weren't very coherent but Vimes managed to catch a few sentences. "Threatening my person!.....Blood of Regicides!...My plans in ruin!...Glory of Klatch!!!"

Whatever he, Vimes, had done it had been big. He wished like hell he could remember it. "Sir!" he cut in as the Prince began to repeat himself. "Are you saying, sir, that I've broken the Contract?" (1)

Cadram's answer was a piercing scream, soaring to the very fringes of audibility and sanity, followed by a frantic gobbling sound as he tore at his beard. Vimes turned to the Major. "Better get a doctor, His Highness seems about to throw a fit."

The poor man gave his lord and Seriph a frightened look and Vimes a downright terrified one. Why? He wasn't the one about to go into convulsions. "Put him in the cells until His Highness recovers himself," the Major said at last. "And tell the guard on the door to summon the royal physicians."

Vimes' four troopers were visibly relieved to get out of there. Vimes was frustrated. He still didn't know what he'd done. "I don't suppose you can tell me how I managed to set His Highness off like that?" he said to the front-right guard.

The man continued to stare fixedly ahead, the muscles of his jaw standing out in knots. "C'mon," Vimes coaxed. "I got a right to know what I've done, don't I?"

"You threatened His Royal Highness' life!" the rear-left guard blurted.

Vimes looked over his shoulder at him. "The hells you say!"

"I was there!" the man stuttered. "I saw you. You held a crossbow on His Highness until the foreign pigs' lord came and took it from you." (2)

Vimes blinked, considered that. "So - I held the Prince at bow point until Lord Whatsisname came and surrendered?"

"Yes!"

"Surrendered unconditionally, without battle saving the lives of thousands of Klatchians?"

"Uh..."

"And that's treason is it?"

The guard blinked. Apparently that struck him as oddly as it did Vimes now that he came to think about it.

"His Highness says it is," the front-right hand guard said stiffly.

Vimes shrugged. "Guess he would know."

----

"Arrested!" Major Red exclaimed. "Why?"

"I don't know, sir." The Adjutant seemed near tears. "I've been through yesterday's log and my notebooks, sir, and can't find a thing anybody could take exception to."

"What exactly did we do yesterday?" Major Red asked sitting down in the chair facing the Colonel's desk.

The Adjutant riffled through the log. "We marched to our assigned position in the battle order. A parley started and we stood at ease." a slight frown deepened the worry lines on his forehead. "We were arrested by the City Watch of Ankh-Morpork."

"I beg your pardon?"

The Adjutant shrugged helplessly. "That's what it says, sir. 'Arrested by the Ankh-Morpork Watch' along with the rest of the army and the enemy army."

The Major blinked. "Can they do that?"

"According to this, yes." The Adjutant shook his head in disbelief and continued, "We issued Orakh and had a brew-up. An officer from the Prince's Own came and announced the enemy's surrender -"

"First they arrest us and then they surrender?" the Major wondered. "Is it just me or is that dammed odd?"

"Exactly what the Colonel said," the Adjutant replied, still reading. "Then he went to the parley tent to ask about our prisoners -"

"We had prisoners?"

"Yessir, from an affray the day before. Would you like to hear about it?"

"No thanks, let's stick to yesterday. Did you go with the Colonel?"

"No sir."

"Well that's it then. Something must have happened when he was alone."

"No, sir." The Adjutant seemed near tears. "I mean yes, sir. But he would have told me! He always tells me. That's my job, sir, remembering for him!"

"I know, I know," the Major soothed. A thought struck him, a very unpleasant thought. "Maybe nothing happened. Maybe the Colonel's been falsely accused." The two men looked at each other. Military law in Klatch tended more to the summary than to justice.

"If that's so, and it must be, then the Contract has been broken," the Major said slowly.

"Yes, sir, it has." They looked at each other some more.

"The Contract has been broken," the Major repeated. "We get the Colonel back and we get out of here."

"Yes, sir. How, sir?" the Adjutant asked.

There was a brief knock at the door and one of the Major's runners came in. "Sir, soldiers of the Prince's Own taking up positions around the barracks, sir!"

"Oh they are, are they?" the Major said thoughtfully. He began to smile, it was an evil smile. "How many?"

"At least a battalion, sir," the Runner replied, sharing a puzzled look with the Adjutant.

"And come evening there'll be a change of guard, making another battalion," the Major mused.

Comprehension dawned on both Adjutant and runner. They began to grin as well, evilly of course.

----

S. Vimes lay on his back on the hard prison cot and blew smoke rings at the dark ceiling. So he'd held the Seriph at bow-point had he, and now Prince Cadram was ranting about ruined plans, meaning a peaceful resolution had been the last thing he wanted. So - it hadn't been about this Leshp place at all but something very different. S. Vimes had a cynical, suspicious mind, especially about politicians, he could guess at His Highness's real purposes - and he didn't like them one bit.

The Legion was mother, the Legion was father. The Legion was your country, but it served the Seriph of Klatch and this Seriph had plans S. Vimes wanted no part of. He took the cigar out of his mouth.

"I quit," he said softly to the ceiling.

Sometime later Vimes opened his eyes and stared into the pitch blackness of the cell. He remembered who he was. He remembered where he was and why. It was downright disorienting. He'd quit the Legion, that meant he'd no longer forget. He remembered yesterday very well. At least he thought it was yesterday, the high barred square of window showed dark and he couldn't have slept a whole day through, not that it mattered. He settled back, head on folded arms. Sooner or later somebody would come, and then they would see what they would see.

----

There was a hole in the universe. A Colonel Vimes shaped hole that the 13th regiment, formerly of the Klatchian Legion, was determined to fill.

Major Red had chosen the moment of maximum confusion, with tired guards going off and their relief trying to find out where they belonged, to strike. The troopers of the elite Prince's Own took one look into the cold eyes of the men of the 13th and caved without a fight. They were brave, not stupid. Twenty minutes later double rows of men in the green robes and turbans of the Prince's Own marched out of the barracks and formed up, one lot heading down the road to the gates, the other up towards the palace.

----

Vimes opened his eyes. A glint of light was coming from the grilled slot in the door and he could hear the clanking of keys as it was unlocked. He rolled off the cot and under it.

The door opened and a gaoler entered, silhouetted against the yellow brightness of a lamp hanging on a hook in the passage. Eyes adjusting he made out the empty cot and took a few steps closer.

Vimes rolled out from under the cot bowling the gaoler over like a tenpin. The man hit the floor with a sound resembling that made by tub of lard being emptied onto a slab. Vimes uncoiled to his feet and possessed himself of the long halberd. He gave the man a scientifically judged tap on the head and the gaoler went nighty-night.

Vimes hefted the long spear experimentally in his hand. "I sure hope I know how to use this thing," he muttered to himself. There were voices in the guardroom at the end of the passage. Vimes decided to let them come to him. They did.

The door opened. Yellow light streamed out, the gaoler showing as a dark outline against it. Vimes swung the pole end of the halberd between the man's legs then spun it round to hit him on the back of the head with the blunt side of the axe end as he doubled over. He joined his colleague in sleepy-by land.

'Yep, I know how to use it.' Vimes waited, expecting a rush.

Instead a familiar voice said, "Colonel?"

He gave a blink that had nothing to do with the light making his eyes water. "Major Red?"

"Yessir!"

Vimes went inside. After a moment the broadly grinning face of his second swam into view, along with that of his Adjutant and several Legionnaires. They were wearing green robes and turbans.

"Should have known you'd get yourself out!" the Major practically crowed.

"Red, what the hells are you doing here?" Vimes demanded.

"Rescue operation, sir!" The Major threw him a dashing salute. "We've deserted, sir!"

Vimes eyebrows rose

"That is the traditional way of leaving the Legion, sir," his Adjutant pointed out.

"Arresting you for something you've not done breaks the Contract," said the Major.

"Seems I did do something," Vimes answered. "According to eye witnesses I held His Highness at bow-point until the enemy arrived to surrender."

"If so you must've had a good reason, sir!" the Major said stoutly.

The Adjutant looked confused. "But, sir, you didn't leave our position until after the surrender had been announced."

"Didn't I?" Vimes frowned. "Damn, that's odd."

"That brings us back to false arrest," the Major said calmly. "So, how do we get out of here, sir?"

Vimes eyebrows, which had pulled down into a puzzled frown, took flight once more. "When you came in here, Major didn't you have a plan for getting out again?"

"No, sir," the man replied cheerfully, surfing the crest of an adrenalin high. "Planning is your department, sir."

Vimes gave him the Look but the Major just grinned at him. After a moment the Colonel grinned back. His adrenal gland was pumping the appropriate hormones into his bloodstream too. "Guess we fight our way out then."

"Yessir!" the Legionnaires chorused.

----

1. Colonel Vimes is referring to the contract between the members of the Klatchian Foreign Legion and the Klatchian government.

2. As we can see the left-rear guard has confused this present Vimes with our Vimes of Ankh-Morpork. This is an understandable error as we will see.


	3. Chapter 3

Vimes peered cautiously around the heavy iron-plated door to the cells. The wide whitewashed corridor outside was positively a-swarm with soldiers of the Prince's Own, the Royal Camel Corps and the Seriphic Guard all running hither and thither with weapons drawn. Vimes closed the door gently and turned to Major Red.

"It's like a stirred hornets' nest out there. What the hells did you do?"

"They must have found the bodies," said a Legionnaire.

Vimes closed his eyes.

"Unconscious bodies," the Major said hastily. "Seeing as they were until recently our comrades in arms I ordered non-lethal force, sir. "

"That's good," Vimes said calmly. "Non-lethal force to do what exactly?"

"To replace the guard detachments at all entrances and key points with our own men, sir," the Major answered. Oh, and I stationed 1st platoon Yellow A at the cross corridor as support.

"Great and Small Gods! We don't want a massacre, Major."

"Now, sir that's not quite fair -"

"Not fair? It's Bloody Looney we're talking about here, Major!"

Major Red cleared his throat. "Well, sir, I figured if things went pear shaped Bloody Looney was just the officer I wanted backing me up."

He had a point there. Vimes gave a sigh and eased the door open again for another peek. "It's so damned confused out there we probably won't get a second look. Let's go."

He was right. His wedge of grimfaced, purposeful soldiers pushed their way through the chaos without opposition, barring the occasional accidental collision. The 1st of Yellow Company A stood around the domed space where seven corridors met, backs to the whitewashed walls, watching the confusion in a bemused sort of way.

Lieutenant Bloody Looney's face broke into a huge grin at the sight of Vimes. He neatly sidestepped a hurtling clerk desperately clutching huge folders of papers to his ample breast and returned the salute. "Lieutenant, if I ask what your girls have been doing will I regret it?"

"No sir," she answered promptly. "Fact is we haven't done a damned thing." A squad of red robed Seriphics pounded by. She shrugged. "I don't know what caused all the panic but it wasn't us." (1)

"You see, sir," said Major Red.

Armed men, clerks, bottle washers and the occasional veiled houri, poured past from all directions to all points without so much as a glance at the Legionnaires. Of course the Prince's Own uniforms may have had something to do with that.

Vimes shrugged. "Don't look a gift camel in the mouth," he said. "Let's get out of here." Runners hurried off to carry word to the rest of the regiment as the 1st A formed a wedge and bulldozed their way to the main doors.

The panic on the parade ground outside the palace was even worse. There were a lot more men running around mixed in with wailing, distraught women and screaming kids. The Legionnaires of the 13th fell into formation in front of the palace and watched it all, seriously puzzled.

Vimes fished a junior officer of the 43rd Smale Cannequineers (2) out of the mob. "What's going on here Ensign?"

The boy gasped for breath and blurted, "We're under attack, sir. The fort is under attack!"

"So? This is the Fist of Gebra, man!" Vimes snapped. "It's impregnable." 'Those are the first to fall.' a little voice at the back of his mind said cynically.

"But they're already inside, sir! They're holding the gate."

"Uh, sir?" Major Red piped up. "That'll be Yellow Battalion, sir. I sent them to secure the gatehouse. It seemed like a good idea, sir, I didn't expect the rest of the army to go spare like this."

"Nor would I," Vimes said grimly. "Sergeant Major! I want some order out of this chaos, now!"

"YES SIR! YOU MEN WITH ME! WHASSUP YOU TAKE YOUR SQUAD -"

"Uh, we have deserted haven't we, sir?" Bloody Looney asked.

"WHAT ARE YOU, SOLDIERS OF KLATCH OR DANCING GIRLS? IN LINE, IN LINE!"

"Yes, Lieutenant, but old habits die hard." Vimes turned back to the Ensign. "Is there anybody outside the walls, son?"

"WITH RESPECT, SIR. FALL IN AND SET THE MEN AN EXAMPLE, THAT'S RIGHT, SIR. WELL DONE, SIR!"

"Yes, sir, a whole army, sir."

"Right." Vimes turned back to Bloody Looney. "We're not going to have much luck getting out of a besieged fortress now are we, Lieutenant?"

She grinned. "Well, sir, seeing as it's you -"

Major Red grinned even harder. "We got out of Korbil all right, sir."

Vague memories of a huge fortress on a sea-girt rock surrounded by a besieging force of ships flitted like so many ghosts through Vimes' memory while the planning part of his brain presented images of blue prints and survey maps for his consideration. Then the Sergeant Major blasted his thoughts to fragments.

"SIR! RANKS READY TO BE ADDRESSED, SIR!"

No good planning until he knew exactly what was going on anyway. "Thank you, Sergeant Major." The formerly screaming masses looked like soldiers again, drawn up in slightly ragged formations facing the palace. Vimes climbed to the top of the stair leading to the big door then turned to confront the Klatchians, his own men - and women - clustered at the foot of the steps beneath him.

"I am Colonel S. Vimes of the 13th Klatchian Legion. Is there anybody here who ranks me?"

The young Ensign's face suddenly glowed with something uncomfortably like awe. "The 13th? You're Old Stonewall?" he turned excitedly to the Adjutant. "That's Old Stonewall?"

Oh yeah, they did call him that didn't they? Something to do with a stand on a river. He saw the name go whispering through the ranks. "Any general officers, please?" Apparently not. "Right! Then I'm in command. I know you men have all got your assigned defense stations, take them. Remember this is the Fist, it's never fallen to an enemy and it's not going to happen now!"

The deep throated cheer seemed to rock the steps under his feet. Soldiers streamed out of the plaza, heading for the walls and defensive towers. "Let's see what's happening at the gate," Vimes said to Major Red.

-----

There really was an army outside, somewhat to Vimes' surprise. Even more astonishing it was a Klatchian army flying the Seriph's flag.

"What gives, Major?" he asked Yellow, lighting a cigar.

"Hard to say, sir," the Major replied. "We were still in the process of securing the gatehouse when this lot was sighted. I then suggested to the guard captain that he might care to join our defense. He agreed."

"Any injuries?" Vimes inquired.

"A few of the guards did see fit to resist but the Surgeon says they should all make it. One casualty on our side, Corporal Hammerhand broke a nail, sir."

Vimes closed his eyes. "On what?"

"A door, sir."

"Good. Last time it was a face."

Vimes climbed up the levels of the gate-tower. Each landing held its compliment of crossbowmen and loaders. He noticed that it was the men in the black and tan uniforms of the Gebra Guard who were doing the loading. His own men, still disguised in the green of the Prince's Own, greeted him with broad grins of welcome. The Gebra men just stared.

From the top of the gate Vimes looked down at the army overflowing the little cup of a valley before the fortress. To his surprise he found himself identifying the flags and penons easily. City regiments from Al-Khali, the lion of the Caid of Izunt, the leopards of the Ameer of Knoth, the spitting camel of the Sherif of the Gerouts, and the red and black personal banner of General Ashal.

"What the hells is going on here?" Vimes wondered out loud.

"Looks like a civil war to me, sir," said Major Yellow.

"Not another one!" said Vimes. Another one? Yeah, he had a distinct feeling he'd been caught like this before, between mortar and pestle, just waiting to be ground to bits. He sighed. "Call for a parley, Sergeant Major, let's find out just what kind of cacky we're hip deep in this time."

----

The great gates opened a crack, just wide enough for Vimes to squeeze out. General Ashal was waiting, alone as promised, sitting on a camp stool with another facing him and a table at his elbow holding a bottle, two glasses and a gold cigarette case.

Vimes accepted the implied invitation and took a seat. The General poured. "A glass of wine, Colonel? It's Quirmian."

"No thank you, sir. Army issue orakh's ruined whatever palate I might have had," Vimes answered.

"Cigarette?" Ashal proffered the gold case. They were slim and white and looked Tezmani.

"Thank you, sir, but no. I have my own." Vimes lit up and blew a ring of evil smelling smoke away from the General, they were still being polite. "So, would you mind telling me why the General-in-Chief of Klatch is besieging one of his own fortresses?"

Ashal smiled thinly. "I am acting on behalf of the Seriph, Colonel."

"Excuse me?" Vimes said politely, waving backward at the walls. "I thought the Seriph was in there."

"Prince Cadram has been dethroned by the unanimous decision of the Divan." (3)

Vimes nodded. "Having seen the man recently I think the Divan showed damn good judgment." He knocked off his ash and took another deep draw letting it out slowly. "You helped him engineer this war of course."

"Of course," Ashal said evenly. "I did not however collude in his attempt on Prince Khufurah's life."

"Oh ho?" Vimes eyebrows rose. "The plot sickens. Spare me the details, General. So who is the current Seriph?"

"That same Prince Khufurah."

Vimes nodded. "Good choice. A fine man with no inconvenient ambitions or ideals."

"Yes," said Ashal.

"General, did I or did I not hold the former Seriph at bow point?"

A faint smile touched Ashal's face. "You did not, sir. Though the man who did resembled you quite strikingly." After a moment's thought the General continued, "His name is Samuel Vimes."

The Colonel's hand shook almost imperceptibly as a shock or recognition ran through him. Sam. Sammie. He tried to conjure up a face but there were still too many holes in the hunk metaphorical of Lancre-cheese that was his memory

Ashal was eyeing him narrowly. "Commander Vimes heads the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. He came all the way to Gebra to make the charge of attempted murder against Prince Cadram and present his evidence."

"And arrested two armies," the Colonel said flatly, then laughed. "Only a Vimes would have that kind of nerve!"

Ashal nodded. "I am inclined to agree. I assume you two are related?"

"I think he's my brother," Vimes said softly. I think, I'm not sure. I can't be sure of anything. Yet. "I consider the Contract broken, sir. I'm deserting."

"And taking the 13th with you," Ashal said.

"That's the plan," Vimes admitted.

"To your family in Ankh-Morpork I presume."

"Well -"

And you expect me to just let you go, Colonel?"

Vimes gave General Ashal the Look. "I think it would be best, sir."

"Would it?" he asked. "You are a dangerous man, Colonel Vimes. I should kill you."

Vimes grinned around his cigar. "Sir, you are welcome to try."

"Yes," General Ashal agreed. "Much easier said than done." He looked up at the walls of the fortress. "You have the Fist and a garrison of ten thousand men. I shudder to think what a man like you could do with such resources."

Vimes blinked. "Nine thousand of them aren't my men, sir."

"Oh, but they will be, they will be." Ashal smiled crookedly, it faded and was replaced by a deadly seriousness that sent chills down Vimes' spine. "You are a potential threat of incalculable proportions, Colonel. I should destroy you, no matter what the cost." Then he shrugged, the smile back. "But I find I don't want to. Even if it was as easy as shooting you now I wouldn't do it."

"Well - good," Vimes said, trying to hide his discomfort.

General Ashal fixed him with a steady brown eye. "I will see passage is arranged for you and your men," he said quietly. "Please remember, Colonel, Klatch let you and your men go free. One favor deserves another."

"Uh, sure," Vimes said, now completely at loss and very uncomfortable indeed.

----

'That was a very strange conversation,' Vimes told himself, grinding out his cigar on the sill as he watched General Ashal's army march under the gate. He shivered. 'What the hells was it all about anyway? What did he think I might do? What could I do?'

"Sir?"

He turned to face his Adjutant and the two Majors. "Well it's all settled. Ashal's even agreed to get us a ship."

"That's good." the Adjutant frowned in concern. "Are you all right, sir."

"I think so." Vimes considered his feelings. "It's just damned awkward negotiating with a man who knows you better than you know you."

"We have the logs, sir," the Adjutant offered.

"A little light reading for our sea voyage," Vimes said wryly.

"Where are we going, sir?" Major Red asked.

"Ankh-Morpork. It seems I have family there."

----

Vimes did not read the logs on the sea voyage. For one thing it was going to be only a day and night. For another he'd been too busy settling the men in. And finally he just didn't want to - okay? Memories were beginning to leak back into his consciousness and most of them were full of fire, steel and blood. Lots and lots of blood. He didn't care to think about them. Instead he thought about what he might do with ten thousand men and the Fist for a base. So far he'd come up with an even dozen scenarios ranging from dismantling the Klatchian Empire to domination of the Circle Sea. Of course thinking them didn't mean he could do them he assured himself.

But Ashal thought he could. General Ashal, who was no fool, had been deeply and genuinely worried about what he, Vimes, might do. And that worried the hells out of 'Old Stonewall'. What kind of a man was he? He took a deep breath of sea air. He'd know soon enough, no need to hurry the process.

The Adjutant climbed out of a hatch and walked across the deck to join Vimes by the rail. "The men all bedded down?" the Colonel asked.

"Yes, sir. And the boys on the poop have stopped retching. Mostly."

Vimes looked up at the slowly moving stars and gently belling sails overhead. "We're making good time. We should sight land just after dawn. A pause. "I think I have sea experience, Adjutant."

The man nodded. "Yes, sir. We noticed that during the pirate campaign. We figured you may have been a sailor before you signed the Contract."

Vimes shook his head. "A sailor from Ankh-Morpork who somehow ended up in the Legion."

"We do get all kinds, sir."

"So we do," Vimes agreed. "So we do."

----

1. A surprising number of women also have things to forget. A Company Yellow Battalion is the 13th's equivalent of Borogravia's 'Monstrous Regiment'. They are also Vimes' best infiltrators, guerillas, and all around nasty cases. Women do *not* fight fair. It comes of having no sporting tradition.

2. A cannequin is a sort of crossbow suitable for use by mounted soldiers.

3. The Divan is not a piece of furniture. It is the title of the Klatchian ruling council consisting of the five viziers and the High Priest of Offler.


	4. Chapter 4

The Adjutant stared at the slowly moving greeny-yellow crust of the Ankh. "Does it always smell like that, sir?"

"As far as I can remember," answered Vimes.

The Adjutant thought about that. "A camel smells worse," he decided.

"Maybe a little."

They stood on the dock watching the men (and women) of the 13th disembark and form up under the bawled orders of the Sergeant Major. The usual occupants of the dock, stevedores and the like, had been driven to the outer fringes and a crowd was forming in the middle distance.

Major Red came over and saluted. "What now, sir?"

"We wait," Vimes said calmly. "We will be met."

"Sir?" the Major looked puzzled.

"I doubt we're expected, sir," the Adjutant said respectfully.

Vimes shook his head. "Trust me, we are."

The Sergeant Major marched over and threw a salute you could cut bread with. "ALL ASSEMBLED AND AWAITING ORDERS, SIR!"

"At ease, Sergeant Major. We may be here for a bit." the Colonel sat down on a convenient bale and lit one of his D'reg cigars.

----

The people of Ankh-Morpork are famous for their love of street theater, and for their extremely flexible definition of what constitutes same. A mere cart collision could bring traffic to a standstill for hours. A genuinely interesting sight might cause the entire city to come to a grinding halt. A regiment of Klatchian Legionnaires definitely qualified as 'interesting'. The crowd grew. Another formed on the opposite bank of the river. A voice crying 'Sausages inna bun!' could be faintly heard above the soft bumping of the greeny-yellow substance one had to call 'water' for lack of a better word. The voices of the Legionnaires rose and fell in subdued conversation as they sprawled around the dock playing crap and Cripple Mr. Onion.

"Er, sir?" Major Yellow approached his C.O., visibly uncomfortable. "We're surrounded, sir."

Vimes cast a glance around. "So we are. Makes me feel right at home."

Yellow grinned. Right, the Colonel had it sorted, nothing to worry about. He wandered back to his card game.

Nice to know the men had confidence in him, Vimes reflected, and hoped to hell it was justified. A tramp of iron soled feet attracted his attention. The crowd parted to let through a squad of armored men led by a tall, redheaded fellow encased in blindingly bright steel.

Vimes stood up. The Adjutant, the Sergeant Major, and the two battalion commanders came to his side. The Legionnaires paused, cards and dice in hand, to watch with un-winking eyes as the group approached.

The closer they got the slower the watchmen walked, coming to a complete stop about three yards from Vimes. The redheaded man's mouth hung slightly open, blue eyes wide with shock.

"Captain Carrot, I presume?" said the Colonel, smoothly. "I believe I had the pleasure of being arrested by you a few days ago?"

Carrot's head shook, a small, perpetual motion of disbelief. "Who - who are you?"

"Colonel S. Vimes, formerly of the Klatchian Foreign Legion." He nodded towards the men of the 13th. "My regiment. We've deserted."

"To Ankh-Morpork?" said Carrot.

Vimes nodded. "I hear I have family here."

A slightly hysterical giggle, quickly cut off, came from the watchmen ranged behind Carrot.

The Captain's mouth closed. His head stopped shaking and he took a deep breath, settling back into his skin. "Yes, sir, I think that's pretty certain." He studied Vimes carefully and said without turning, "Fetch the Commander, please, Constable Ping."

"No need, Captain, I'm here."

Heads snapped round. The man had apparently materialized out of nowhere just a few feet away. It was Colonel Vimes' turn to stare. He'd seen that face before, very recently. That morning in fact - in the mirror when he shaved.

"Sammie?" he said uncertainly.

"Saul?" said the doppleganger in front of him. "Saul is that you?"

"I think so," said the Colonel. Then memory crashed in on him. Yes. The S stood for Saul and this - this was his kid brother?"

Suddenly the two Vimes were pounding each other on the back. "Look at you," Saul said, half laughing, half crying. "Look at you, Sammie, you're a man!" And tough as dragon hide with eyes that looked to have seen the Elephant a time or two. (1)

"We thought you were dead." Sam answered, those same eyes filmed with unshed tears. "Dammit Saul we thought you were dead! What did you want to go and join the Legion for?"

"Damned if I know," Saul shrugged. "Hasn't come back to me yet. I just hope to gods it wasn't a woman."

Sam laughed raggedly and let his long lost brother go, fishing a handkerchief from inside his well used breastplate. "So what brings you home now, brother mine?"

"No place else to go," said Saul. "Besides, I think I've got an invitation."

"What?" Sam started to say blankly, and was interrupted.

"Excuse me, Your Grace." A sharply creased gentleman, immaculate in striped trousers and bowler, bowed politely to Sam then turned to Saul. "Colonel Vimes? You have an appointment with his lordship at your earliest convenience."

"I'll have to get my men settled in somewhere first."

"Of course, sir. His lordship suggests the old barracks at Cheapside. He is afraid they are in some disrepair -"

"We're not picky," Saul Vimes answered. "Sergeant Major, call the men to attention."

"TEN'SHUNN!"

And magically the lounging, chatting, dicing and card playing men were in ranks, lines and backs straight as rulers. Sam Vimes, to whom the word 'smart' was practically an insult, blinked and shot a slight, considering frown at his brother.

"If somebody could just show us the way?" Saul said. "I'm afraid I don't remember much about the city yet."

"Of course, sir," said the gentleman in a bowler. "Just follow me."

"Sergeant Major, follow that man."

"YES, SIR! AFTER YOU, SIR! BY THE LEFT, FORWARD!"

And somehow the neat blocks of sand colored uniforms topped by white kepis coalesced into a marching line, four men across, filing neatly out of the docks and down Cocksbill street on Drumknott's heels, (2) giving their Colonel, his brother and the watchmen a crisp eyes right as they passed.

As the last of the Legionnaires disappeared into the street Sam Vimes gave his own men a look and a nod. They needed no more, Carrot and his squad headed after the Legionnaires. Sam turned to his brother. "I'll show you the way to the palace, shall I?"

----

Havelock Vetinari gazed up at the two Vimes standing in identical 'at ease' stance before his desk looking over his right and left shoulders respectively. The resemblance was really quite striking. The same granite jaw, the same steely eye, the same battered-but-never-bowed set to the shoulders. Vetinari let out an invisible sigh. Two Vimes. Oh dear, had this really been a good idea?

"Welcome to Ankh-Morpork, Colonel."

"Thank you, sir," the right hand Vimes said crisply to the window pane behind Vetinari's ear. "Would I be right in guessing you have some use for me, sir?"

"That depends, Colonel. What can you do for us?"

Saul Vimes gave a slight shrug. "Depends on my resources, sir. Give me ten thousand men and suitable support and I'll conquer the Sto Plains for you. Give me 50 thousand and funds to match, I'll hand you the world."

Vetinari glanced at Sam Vimes' face and raised steepled fingers to hid his smile. "You are very sure of yourself, Colonel."

Saul Vimes considered that. "Yes, sir, I am. No idea why."

"I have rather more than an idea," Vetinari answered dryly. "I assure you, Colonel, your confidence is well placed."

"Glad to hear it, sir."

"However I have no interest in conquest."

"Fine by me, sir. How about roads, fortifications and the like? Legionnaires are good builders, sir. 'First we dig 'em, then we die in 'em' as we say." (3)

"Possibly later," said Vetinari. "At the moment, Colonel, what I need is a deterrent." The Patrician paused, and continued delicately. "I fear some of my leading citizens are less than happy with the conclusion of our recent war."

"Ah," said Saul Vimes. "Sore losers, eh?"

"Losers?" That was Sam Vimes. "What did we lose, a sunken island?"

"A chance for glory?" suggested Saul Vimes.

"Very perceptive, Colonel." Vetinari looked at the elder Vimes brother appreciatively. "Yes, precisely that. Also certain rather important people lost considerable face. And they have several thousand armed men at their disposal."

"I see your problem, sir," said Saul Vimes.

Sam Vimes shook his head in disbelief. "No. No, not even Rust would be so stupid..." his voice trailed off and his face set in grim lines. "What am I saying? Of course he would."

"This would be the man who led an army of fifteen or twenty thousand against the Fist of Gebra without supplies or artillery support?" Saul Vimes inquired.

"The same," Vetinari said. The Colonel's face froze into a stony mask. The Patrician shot a quick glance at his Vimes. He knew that look.

"I've hung men for that kind of criminal stupidity," Saul said in a voice straight off a Hubland glacier.

"I know," said Vetinari. "I have no wish to see Ankh-Morpork turned into a battlefield, Colonel Vimes. I need a deterrent, which I believe you and your men can supply."

Saul nodded. "I think I understand you, sir."

"I'm sure you do, Colonel."

"Uh, sir, I thought we didn't have the money to hire mercenaries?" Sam Vimes said, putting his finger on a problem that seemed to have escaped both his brother and Vetinari. "No offense, Saul."

"None taken," his elder brother said serenely. "The Legion are mercenaries, Sam, but we are true to our Contract."

The Patrician gave one of his quick, thin smiles. "Mercenaries? Not at all. Lord Vimes here has simply raised a regiment as is his undoubted right as a gentleman and citizen."

"Lord who?" both Vimes said in shocked unison.

Vetinari raised steepled fingers to chin level and there was a definitely twinkle in the icy eyes as he continued: "Surely, Your Grace, you realize that the - rehabilitation - of your distinguished ancestor naturally includes restoration of the rank and estates of your ancient and illustrious family -"

"Our what?" both Vimes said in blank unison.

" - which or course descend to the eldest son and heir," Vetinari finished, ignoring the interruption and nodding graciously at Saul.

He looked at his younger brother. "We have rank and estates?"

"I dunno. Do we?" Sam looked at Vetinari.

"Of course," the Patrician said with another one of his smiles. "Not the Ramkin fortune I grant you, but quite sufficient to maintain a force of a thousand or so men."

"Ah," said Saul, relaxing. "Convenient that."

"Very." agreed Vetinari.

-----

The two Vimes emerged from the palace gate in a somewhat bemused condition. Saul turned to Sam. "Ancient and Illustrious family?"

Sam shrugged. "Old Stoneface. You remember about Old Stoneface?"

Saul thought. "Yes." He gave his brother a bit of the Look. "I won't even ask about this 'Your Grace' business."

"Thank you."

They proceeded down Filigree street towards Cheapside. Or rather Sam 'proceeded' in the in the easy, ineffable fashion of the Eternal Policeman. Saul marched, but slowly and with a slight roll that came of decades of marching through the sands of various deserts.

"Mam's gone?" Saul said abruptly.

Sam nodded tightly. "About ten years ago."

"Damn."

"She always said you'd come back. Vimes are hard men to kill, she used to say."

"Damn," Saul said again. "I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse. Gods, if I abandoned you lot for to forget some woman I'll kill myself."

"Don't," said Sam.

Saul sighed. "All right. How are the girls?"

"Fine. All married and doing well."

Saul hesitated. "And - Simon?"

Sam's face hardened into stony Vimesness. "Still a thief."

"Gods. Da must be turning over in his grave."

Sam snorted. "Da, Grandad, and the whole line back to Suffer-Not-Injustice."

They turned onto Cheapside. The barracks were tall stone buildings set in a square with a narrow alley running between them. The windows were gaping holes, the glass long since broken and the wooden frames taken away for kindling. The Adjutant stood waiting on the doorstep - the doors were gone too of course - and sounds of hammering came from within.

Saul Vimes returned his salute casually. "Well, Adjutant?"

"Four walls and a roof, sir," the man shrugged in answer. "Mind you the floors and stairs need some repair."

"So I hear. Where are they getting the wood, Adjutant?"

He pointed. "Abandoned building down that-a-way, sir."

Saul looked at Sam who asked: "Does it have a sign saying Three Jolly Luck take away fish bar?"

"Yes, sir," said the Adjutant.

Sam smiled crookedly. "Not a problem."

Saul gave a little sigh of relief. "Good. I'm afraid Legionnaires are notorious scroungers, Sammie. I'll do my best to keep them in bounds." He turned crisply to the Adjutant. "This is not enemy territory and I will not tolerate light fingers. Any man who fails to control himself will face me - and then I'll turn him over to my brother here."

The Adjutant looked from one Vimes to the other and nodded, expression sober but with a suspicion of a glint in his eye. "That should do it, sir. Sirs."

----

1. A Klatchian expression originating in the first Ymitury war. It refers to the grim and battered look of men who've faced one too many elephant charges. Coincidently it was also used on Roundworld of veteran Union soldiers.

2. C'mon, you knew it was Drumknott, didn't you?

3. This is also the motto of Robert A. Heinlein's Combat Engineers in 'Starship Troopers'.


	5. Chapter 5

"I need to see Lord Rust. Now!"

"His Lordship is not at home -"

"To hells with that," Lord Venturi snarled and pushed past the butler. The center hall of the Rust townhouse fairly bristled with enough armor and weapons to equip a small army of lancers. "Ronnie! Where are you, Ronnie? It's Charles!"

A dressing-gowned Lord Rust emerged from the breakfast room, half eaten toast in one hand and teacup in the other. "Have you lost your mind, Charles? Bursting in on a man at this hour -"

"Vetinari's bought mercenaries." Venturi blurted.

The pale blue eyes actually blinked. "Impossible!"

"I saw them with my own eyes. Vimes is drilling them in Sator Square at this very moment."

"Vimes!"

"His Grace the Duke of Ankh-Morpork I should say," Venturi's voice fairly dripped poison - strychnine possibly, or some exotic tree frog venom. "Defense of the City is his job these days."

A fine shade of tyrian purple surged into Rust's face and his veins swelled until they seemed like to burst. He thrust the toast and teacup into his butler's hands, turned and stalked upstairs without another word. He reappeared mere moments later, knotting his cravat, and clattered back down the steps. "Show me." was all he trusted himself to say.

----

Lord Venturi had in fact understated the case. Not only were there soldiers drilling in Sator Square but an even larger group was practicing maneuvers in the Plaza of Broken Moons while yet a third party assailed the crumbling Barbican with ropes and pitons.

Sam Vimes watched from the front of the crowd in the Cham where he could get a good view of square, plaza and Barbican. The legionnaire's movements were sure, fluid and very, very fast as they marched and wheeled, formed lines, columns and squares, and swarmed up and over the tall wall fragments of the Barbican. Their blue coats were darned and stained here and there with bloches of faded brown. Their leatherwork did not shine nor did their weapons but the latter were clearly in fine working order. Their sabers didn't flash in the sun but they looked very sharp indeed when drawn and flourished.

This is the real thing, Sam thought grimly. No pretty uniforms, no sparkling brass, no pipe clay. Just a carefully trained, thoroughly workmanlike killing machine. He looked at his elder brother.

Saul stood on the empty pedestal of some long vanished monument, smoking one of his evil little cigars and turning his head just enough to take in each busy detachment of soldiers in turn. He looked - well he looked like Sam himself did when he was watching his watchmen, seemingly inattentive but actually seeing everything. From time to time Saul would bend down to say a word or two to one of the cluster of soldiers standing around the base of his pedestal and the man would trot off double-time to deliver the order or observation to officer or sergeant.

For some reason Sam shivered. Then he saw Lord Rust, trailed by Lord Venturi, pushing their way through the watching crowds.

----

"Vimes! Vimes!"

A blue coated soldier materialized in front of Rust, catching the arm waving the walking stick casually in one ham-like hand. "Now, now, Sir. We don't want to go bothering the Colonel when he's working."

Rust stared into the brass buttons adorning the front of a long blue coat then slowly tilted his head back to look up, up into a craggy but not unfriendly face tanned the color of old leather under a white kepi. "Colonel?" he managed to squeak.

"Is there a problem, Hammerhand?" the familiar and hated raspy tones inquired.

Rust re-inflated with fury. "Vimes, I demand to speak to you!"

"Oh you do, do you?" the man hopped off the pedestal and waved the gigantic soldier easily aside.

Eye to eye Rust found himself suddenly, and uncharacteristically, uncertain. There was something different about Vimes. Rust couldn't quite put his finger on what but it was something beyond the odd uniform and the cool lack of recognition in those colorless gray eyes.

"Don't believe I've had the pleasure," said the Vimes in front of him.

"Ronnie, may I present my brother Lord Vimes," said another Vimes from behind him.

Rust whirled and found himself staring at Sam in his familiar battered watch armor. Bewildered and furious he turned back to Saul. "Lord Vimes?!"

"Yeah. Funny thing, seems Old Stoneface was a lord. In fact his title predates your umpteen times great grandaddy's by about thirty years," Sam continued with malice and aforethought. "And of course Saul here, being the oldest son, inherits it. Saul, this is Lord Rust."

"Oh is it?" Colonel Vimes said, frost forming on the words as he bent a gimlet glare on his lordship. "Well, may I say, Lord Rust, that you are undoubtedly the worst general I have ever seen in thirty very odd years of soldiering."

Rust took an involuntary step backwards from the ice in those eyes. Sam Vimes had always been the one man he couldn't bully, intimidate or simply wipe from existence - and now there were two of him.

"Really?" Sam said with some interest.

"Elphey Bey (1) may be a close second," Saul conceded. "And Goth of Chimeria somewhere in the neighborhood but not even they would have been dimwitted enough to take on the Fist without artillery or supplies."

By then Rust had managed to rally for a counter-attack. "Excuse me, 'Lord Vimes', but those are Klatchian uniforms are they not?"

"Klatchian Foreign Legion," Saul said calmly. "We haven't had time to run up new ones as yet."

Venturi swelled up like a poison toad before it spits. "You hired the enemy?!"

"Of course not," said Sam Vimes mugging faux shock in a way that should have earned him a thunderbolt from the god of Overacting. "Klatch is our good friend and ally these days, remember? We've got a treaty and everything."

"Besides we're deserters," added Saul. A remark that for some reason reduced Rust once again to spluttering silence.

But not Venturi. "Deserters, sir!"

"That's right," Sam said with truly manic cheerfulness. "Over a thousand battle hardened veterans of the Klatchian wars of expansion. Lucky us, eh?"

Their lordships' expressions did not suggest that pleasure at the City's luck was among the complicated emotions they were currently experiencing.

Sam, enjoying himself enormously, turned back to his brother. "So, who's this Elphey Bey when he's at home?"

"Elphey Bey commanded the 1st invasion of Muntab, sir." said the Adjutant helpfully.

"The one that ended in a disastrous retreat," Saul added grimly.

"Which the Colonel here stopped at Korke Pass," continued the Adjutant beaming proudly. "We stood our ground like a stone wall, as they say."

"That and the 'S' on my shirts is why they call me Stonewall," said Saul.

Stonewall. Their lordships looked like they'd unexpectedly run headlong into one. Venturi deflated like a pricked bladder and the color drained from Rust's face until his lips were as blue as his blood. Sam stared fascinated. He'd seen a lot of looks on Rust's face, all unpleasant, but never before raw fear. Without another word the two lordships turned and started pushing their way back through the curious crowd that had collected around the base of the pedestal.

Sam watched him go, grinning like Offler's jewel studded image, then turned back to his brother. "That settled them. So, who's this Goth fellow?"

"King - so to speak - Chimeria when we - Klatch that is - invaded some ten or fifteen years back," Saul explained, pulling his eyes from Rust and Venturi's retreating backs. "A murderous idiot. Spent blood like water - and worse still to no effect."

"Well, sir, be fair, he was up against you," said the Adjutant.

Saul snorted. "They didn't need me. Goth practically defeated himself!"

"What the hells did Klatch want to invade Chimeria for anyway?" Sam asked, genuinely surprised. Granted the last couple of Seriphs had been ambitious, to say the least, but the place was a cold, foggy wasteland and not even on the same continent.

"Follow up to the pirate campaign, sir," said the Adjutant. "You may remember they were pretty bad fifteen or so years ago until the Colonel here wiped them out."

Sam blinked. He took no interest in foreign wars but the pirate plague of the early seventies was something every citizen of Ankh-Morpork had known and cursed. He remembered the temporary alliance with Klatch and how the combined fleet, under the command of some genius of a foreign admiral, had literally burned the bastards out. Suddenly he felt a sneaking sympathy for their idiot lordships. He licked his lips and stared at his brother. "That was you?"

Saul nodded. "And now I know why I knew how to handle ships."

"We saw the smoke from Papylos and Cinix," Sam said slowly and with strong if conflicting emotions.

"I'm not surprised," Saul said quietly.

"They said you hung the men and sent the women to the slave markets." Sam said, voice flat.

"I did." Saul answered as baldly.

"Sir," the Adjutant said quietly to Sam. "If you'd seen what we saw, the captives...the 'trophies'..."

"The women were worse than the men," Saul said quietly, eyes chill and faraway, focused on deeply unpleasant memories. "I'd have hung them too, with pleasure. But the Bey insisted on selling them instead."

"That was probably the worse fate, sir," said the Adjutant.

"I hope so. I truly hope so," Saul said softly.

Sam had seen some of the repatriated prisoners himself fifteen years ago. A few were still alive, after a fashion, or so they said, in various religious sanctuaries. The ones who hadn't beaten out their own brains against some wall that is. He tried to shunt the images away. "I'd have done the same."

Saul smiled tightly. "No, Sammy. You may have wanted to, but you wouldn't have. You're a copper, like our Da. I'm a soldier. Killing men is my business." He shivered a little. "But, gods be thanked, it's never been a pleasure."

----

The memories were coming back, and many of them were horrible. There were some Saul was ashamed of and some that sickened him, but none that he could honestly say he would not do again if the circumstances were the same.

Da had warned him years ago after he, Saul, had cracked another boy's jaw for him. His father had given him a good whipping for that followed by a serious talk. There was a vicious, violent streak in the Vimes blood, Da had said. That was why they clove to the Law and kept it like a religion. It gave them the discipline they needed to be men rather than monsters. Saul had given Simon the same talk after Da was gone, but clearly it hadn't taken. Thank the gods that somebody, probably Mam, had steered Sam into the Vimes' age old refuge from themselves. As for Saul himself, well soldiering was a discipline too and he wasn't the first Vimes to turn his hand to it. Suffer-Not-Injustice had been a good soldier as well as a good copper if, unfortunately for him, a pretty bad politician.

Saul remembered his past campaigns now. He remembered his reputation. If the presence of 'Old Stonewall' and his 13th didn't deter restless nobs from making trouble nothing would. But gods, living with the memories was going to be hard.

-----

1. By an interesting coincidence 'Elphy Bey' also happens to be the nickname for the Roundworld General Lord Elphinstone. The man who succeeded in losing the first Afghan War. In the words of Sir Harry Flashman; ' It was not easy: he started with a good army, a secure position, and some excellent officers...But Elphy, with the touch of true genius, swept aside these obstacles with unerring precision, and out of order wrought complete chaos. We shall not, with luck, look upon his like again.'


	6. Chapter 6

The Thirteenth formed up and marched off towards their barracks in Cheapside. The watching crowd melted away, some returning to their own concerns while others with less to do or more curiosity drained out the Cham and plaza and flowed down Broadway on the heels of the troops.

As the Maul emptied a somewhat familiar, to Sam, black coach became visible. "Uh oh."

"Excuse me?" his brother said politely.

"I think we're about to take a ride," Sam answered. And sure enough there was Drumknott making his way towards them through the dregs of the crowd.

Saul arched a questioning brow. "Is that bad?"

"Well...it depends. But as a rule Vetinari means trouble."

The Patrician was ensconced in his black robes upon claret colored upholstery, his eyes bent on the parchments in his hands. "Good morning, Lord Vimes, your Grace, won't you join me," he said without looking up. It was clearly an offer that could not be refused. The two Vimes climbed in, settling themselves with their backs to the horses. The coach started up with a slight jerk.

"I have been investigating the status of your lordship's estates," Vetinari continued pleasantly, shuffling parchment. "Happily they have remained in government hands making restitution a simple matter. There are some 200 square acres of City property -"

"Where?" Sam broke in harshly. Surely Old Stoneface hadn't been one of the slumlords, surely not. Please not.

It was Saul who answered, "Twitcher."

"Exactly right, my lord," Vetinari agreed, finally looking up. "May I ask how you knew?"

Saul shrugged. "We all knew. We lived in Twitcher, a stones throw from Old Hall, when our father was alive. Not that you'd remember, Sam."

Sam blinked. "I thought we'd always lived in Cockbill Street."

Saul shook his head. "No. The move there was Mam's idea. It was cheaper, and less humiliating to her mind to start over where nobody knew us. Up to then the Vimes had always lived in Twitcher. We started out as cottagers on the manor you know, back when it was still outside the walls."

"No, I didn't know," Sam said frowning.

"Well, you weren't old enough to remember Da's stories."

Abruptly the road beneath them shifted from the slightly rutted paving stone of the great squares and avenues. Excellent springs softened, somewhat, the jolting inevitable to wheeled travel over cobblestones.

"I see," said Lord Vetinari interestedly. "Then you are familiar with your estate, Lord Vimes?"

Saul thought. "Hmmmm...there was the Rows where we lived, the brickyard, the common, the High Street of the old village, the cuttings on Peat Moor, the manor grounds....we didn't go much beyond that as kids."

Vetinari cleared his throat. "There is also a great deal of rather valuable commercial property bordering on Short and Kicklebury streets and some scattered suburban properties in Limping Foregate." He folded the parchments and handed them over to Saul. "All very compact."

Saul glanced casually at the topmost parchment, a map. "That's the way we liked it according to Da. Everything in easy walking distance."

Old Hall was certainly old and had clearly been built in increments. There was a stone built core with rather small, round arched windows, clearly the remains of the ancient fortified manor house built long ago outside the walls of a much smaller Ankh-Morpork. There was a somewhat newer brick addition at the rimward end and a half-timbered third story over both with a green tiled roof.

To Sam's surprise the small, leaded window panes were intact and there was no graffiti on the aged walls. He said as much and Saul shook his head.

"This is Twitcher, Sammy." Vetinari produced a big old iron key and Saul smiled. "We won't be needing that, sir." And sure enough the big door at the top of a short flight of steps opened easily.

They found themselves in a wide passage whose carved and time darkened paneling should have been stripped away centuries ago. "That's the dining room and old pantries," Saul said casually waving towards the doors in the left hand wall.

Both Sam and Vetinari looked at him, the former bewildered the latter interested. "Indeed?"

Saul opened half the big door to the right. "And this is the withdrawing room."

It was dusty, but not anywhere near as dusty and grimy as it should have been after three hundred years abandonment. Sam was stunned to see there was still furniture, humped shapes under yellowing sheets. "Somebody's been looking after this place!"

Saul shot him a look. "Of course. This is Twitcher."

Then the door at the far end of the room swung open, banging resoundingly against the wall. The figure that strode through glowed with a pale bluish light and was a bit on the transparent side but otherwise uncannily like Saul and Sam to look at and dressed, like the latter, in battered Watch armor and leathers. In one hand he held an axe and his face was set hard as stone with narrowed eyes sharp as gimlets.

Sam froze, mouth slightly agape. Vetinari's eyebrows almost vanished into his hairline and for once he seemed totally taken by surprise.

Saul simply inclined his head in a slight bow. "Sir."

------

Deep leather chairs stood in a circle in a dim, smoke filled room heavily curtained against the morning sun. Their occupants bickered in increasingly vicious tones.

"Coward!"

Rust reddened but kept himself under control. He always did when it counted. "It isn't cowardice to recognize when you're outmatched, de Word!"

"This from the man who led twenty thousand against the army of Klatch?" Lord Selachi sneered.

"That was against wogs!" Rust waved the armed might of Klatch to one side. "We are talking about Stonewall of the 13th, The conqueror of Tezuman and Khanli, humbler of Muntab, ruiner of Tsort and Chimeria, Stonewall the Devastator, the Undefeated and Undefeatable!"

"Barbarian hyperbole!" de Word snapped.

"Maybe," said Lord Venturi, "but also plain matter of fact. That man out there is the most dangerous and successful soldier since Tacticus and he's Vetinari's."

"He's a mercenary," Lord Monflathers ventured. "Perhaps he can be bought off?"

"Vetinari's restored the Vimes title and lands, how can we top that?" Viscount Skater asked gloomily. There was a moment's uncomfortable silence. None of the noble has-beens in the deep leather chairs liked admitting, even to himself, that Sam Vimes came from a family as ancient as any. One that had in fact been lords of the manor of Twitcher when the Monflathers, Skaters, de Wordes and Rusts had been nameless tradesmen or peasants working other men's fields . Interestingly enough Sam Vimes didn't care to admit it either.

It was de Worde who broke the uncomfortable silence. "Never," he said. "Never. That man murdered my son and Vetinari made Rupert's death a joke." his voice rose manically. "I will have their blood!"

"Easy, de Worde," Selachi said soothingly. "We all understand how you feel."

"We may not have lost sons, but we all share the shame of Vetinari's surrender. Ankh-Morpork's dishonor must be avenged!" spat the present Lord D'eath, a distant cousin of Edward not much saner.

"They have what, a thousand mercenaries and Vime's Watch rabble. We lead an army of ten thousand!" cried the Duke of Eorle.

"Well said, Chauncy!" Lord Selachi struck his leather armrest. (1). "Remember, my lords, the gods favor the side with the most men!" A murmur of support came from the depths of the other chairs.

Rust rose. "Only nine thousand," he said flatly. "If you go on with this madness it will be without me."

"And my regiments as well," added Venturi joining his friend on his feet.

"Traitors then, as well as coward," Selachi sneered. "Get out of my house!"

"Gladly!" snarled Venturi addressing his ancestral enemy directly for the first and last time before he and Rust turned and swept out.

------

Sam Vimes and Lord Vetinari stared as Saul calmly introduced them to the ghost of Old Stoneface - at least Sam gaped, Vetinari merely stared though his icy eyes were somewhat wider than usual.

"You remember my brother Sam, sir. And this is Lord Vetinari the present Patrician of the City."

Old Stoneface cracked a smile that was slightly more terrifying than his glare. "Not king?"

"No indeed, my lord," Vetinari said smoothly, recovering his self possession. "There have been no kings since Lorenzo."

"That was the idea," Stoneface agreed, still smiling.

"Gran'ther has been haunting the hall ever since his execution," Saul explained. "We brought you here once, Sammy, but you were to young to remember."

Sam Vimes swallowed, hard.

"Saul turned back to the ghost. "Lord Vetinari has given Twitcher back to us. I've got your title and Sammy here is Commander of the City Watch. Does that mean you're going to be leaving us?

Stoneface shook his head. "That's good news, the only thing I have ever regretted is the hardships I brought upon my family, but I remain. There will never again be a King of Ankh-Morpork."

Sam thought of Carrot. No more kings! not even one who was a good man. But he didn't want to see his second put up against Stoneface's vengeful spirit either.

Suddenly the translucent blue eyes were boring into his. "Lorenzo's kin are safe from me," the ghost said, almost kindly. "A man isn't answerable for his ancestry, just his deeds."

Sam shot a desperate look at Saul. "He reads minds?"

"Only ours," was the calm answer. "We're his blood and bone, Sammy."

"And spirit," said Stoneface softly. "And spirit. But you always knew that, didn't you Samuel?"

Slowly Sam Vimes nodded. Yes. Yes he had.

----

Notes:

1. This Lord Selachi is in fact an Eorle by birth and the Duke's younger brother. Marmaduke Eorle became Lord Selachi in right of his wife after the male members of the family were eliminated by Lord Snapecase.


	7. Chapter 7

Lord Vetinari and the Vimes brothers were halfway back to the coach when a pigeon crash landed on the flagstones at Sam's feet and a tiny figure tumbled off. Buggy Swires, so far the Watch's only gnome officer, came to attention and saluted looking Sam straight in the shin.

"Sir- " he panted. "Sir! Regret-to-report-the-city-is-under-attack- Sir!"

"If I might ask a few questions, Commander," Vetinari interposed, smooth as silk, before Sam could react. "Just to get the situation clear in my mind."

Buggy pivoted ten degrees to the left and threw another salute. "My Lord!. Yes, my lord."

"We are under attack by whom?"

"The army, my lord. Our army."

Sam covered his eyes. "Oh gods!"

Saul very slowly took out his tin cigar case and extracted one of the evil little weeds he smoked.

Vetinari's face might have tightened a little, or maybe it was just the light. His voice showed no reaction at all. "I see. And exactly where have they elected to attack?"

Buggy scrunched his tiny face even smaller in intense thought. "Well, my lord, when I was flying around looking for Mr. Vimes I saw troops in the palace grounds and streets adjacent."

Saul Vimes lit a match. "The administrative core in other words," he said. "Typical."

"Sir!" Buggy pivoted twenty degrees to the right for another smart salute. "They're all over the Cheapside barracks, sir. I'm afraid your lot's had it."

Saul applied match to cigar. "Oh, I don't think so," he said casually. "Red and Yellow wouldn't let a pack of sloppy, summer soldiers catch 'em napping."

"What about the Watch, Buggy?" Sam asked urgently.

The gnome pivoted back to center and saluted his commander. "Captain Carrot got word before it hit the windmill, sir, and evacuated the Yard. We've regrouped at the Bucket. The off duty men are pouring in, sir, and the men from the section houses but we're cut off from the Kingsway house. No knowing what's happened to Corporal Makepeace and his men."

Sam Vimes' face turned to stone. Chill radiated off him like vapor from dry ice. "Very well, Lance Constable, I gather your orders were to find me. You've found me. Now I'm ordering you to get back on that bird and find out EXACTLY what has happened to Corporal Makepeace, Constable Bauxite and Lance Constable Easy - NOW!" The last word was not shouted but it came out with such force that it might as well have been.

Buggy Swires was blasted backwards by sheer force of personality, tumbling head over heels over his pigeon. He landed on his feet, threw a final salute in Sam's general direction and took off as if shot out of a cannon. Sam Vimes followed him with his eyes, breathing hard.

Vetinari turned to Saul Vimes. "Well, Colonel, it would seem our deterrent has failed."

Saul nodded. "Some folks are just too dim to know when they're out of their league. I see a lot of that."

"I imagine that you do." Vetinari said dryly. "Have you any idea where we might find your men, Colonel."

Saul Vimes puffed out a ring of smelly black smoke, tranquility oozing from every pore. "Nice bit of wall at Goosegate. We might try there."

And sure enough there was Stonewall's 13th, not noticeably mussed nor fussed, enjoying a brew up in the middle of Kicklebury street widdershins of the Goosegate, a battlemented fragment of ancient wall standing between the borough of Twitcher and the rest of Ankh-Morpork. They surged to their feet at the sight of their colonel, pleased but not a wit surprised.

Saul waved them back with a casual 'at ease' gesture. The two majors and the adjutant appeared as if by magic. Saul puffed out another smoke ring and said laconically, "Report."

Major Red saluted smartly. "Midden's hit the windmill, sir. Got word in plenty of time and fell back to this position as per orders. No encounters, no casualties to report."

"Really?" Saul's eyebrows arched. "And how did you manage that?"

"All thanks to Mr. Vimes here, he knows some - unusual routes." Red nodded towards a dapper figure standing quietly and almost invisibly in plain sight.

Sam and Saul stared. The latter said, "Simon?"

The man inclined his head in a slight nod. "Hello, Solly."

"'Unusual routes'?" Sam asked his brother suspiciously.

Simon Vimes, aka 'Stony Sim', former chief enforcer of the Thieves Guild and the first or second most feared man in Ankh-Morpork (these days he and brother Sam were about neck in neck in the polls) pointed the stem of his meerschum pipe downward. "Cellars, Sammie. Like I keep telling you, you can get from one end of this city to the other and never show your nose above ground."

"Useful knowledge in your line of work," Saul observed.

"Your's too." Sim said as flatly.

Vetinari, watching quietly from the background, noted that Stony Sim was stocky, almost heavyset, where his brothers were thin and wiry. What hair they had that wasn't gray was dark while Sim's was fair where it wasn't gray. And yet...and yet; the face was fleshier but had the same granite bones beneath and the eyes locked on Saul's had the same pale, gimlet gaze. "What the hell were you playing at, Solly?"

"Damned if I know," Saul Vimes sighed a little. "I'm sorry, Sim."

A shadow of a smile passed over that granite countenance. "Don't fool yourself. Think you could have kept me from a life of crime when Mam couldn't?"

"Good point." Saul stirred himself, turning back to business. "Right, looks like we've got military coup on our hands." The Vimes eye snapped from one brother to the other. "How many men have you got, Sam?"

"Eighty odd, some VERY odd," he answered warningly. "They're not all men, and they're not soldiers, Saul."

"I know. They're coppers, which means they know this city like the back of their hands. I need intelligence, Sammie. If I'm to avoid fighting in the streets I have know exactly where to find the head so as to cut it off. Your men - or whatever - are just the ones to find that out for me."

Sam Vimes walked into the Bucket and was greeted by something between a sigh of relief and a cheer. The tap room was wall to wall helmets with Dorfl and the trolls rising here and there like mountains over the plains.

"Captain Carrot!" Sam shouted over the babble.

Carrot appeared out of the crowd. "Sir! Buggy found you then?"

"He did. I sent him over the river to see what's happened to our officers at Kingsway."

Carrot looked stricken. "Of course, sir - I'd forgotten all about them."

"Easy, Carrot," Vimes patted his shoulder. "This stunt took us all by surprise. I don't think even Vetinari believed the fine old aristocrats of this city could be this stupid."

The kindly old commander moment was brief. The Vimes jaw set like cooling lava and you could have cut diamonds with his eyes. "Listen up, boys and girls, sorting this out is a job for soldiers not coppers but Colonel Vimes needs to know who is where and with what and he and I figure that coppers are just the lads to find out. So skin out of those uniforms, leave your swords and truncheons and get out there and mingle. Talk to people, poke around, find out what's what and get back here and report."

For a split second nobody moved then metal clinked and clunked as helmets, breastplates and mail were doffed leaving their former wearers feeling smaller and rather chilly. They began filing out past Sam

He pulled the watchmen he wanted out of the stream. "Detritus, you and the other troll officers patrol Quarry road. Stronginthearm you and the dwarfs take Treacle Mine and Cable street. Keep your people calm and watch out for moves against them. The damned aristocrats don't like non-humans." troll and dwarf nodded in unison, the same very serious look on both faces unalike as they were in all other ways.

A blond head bobbed past on the tide of watchmen. "Angua!"

She turned and pushed her way to Sam. "Sir?"

"You stay here with Carrot. You two are too recognizable."

"Not when I'm a wolf, sir. Dogs get in everywhere, Mr. Vimes."

"Yeah, I remember." Including the Assassins' Guildhouse itself. "Right then, off you go." He turned to Carrot still beside him.

"You are very recognizable too, sir," the captain said firmly, as if expecting an argument.

Sam didn't give him one, instead he cracked sort of smile. "I know." All the chairs and tables had been pushed up against the far wall to make room for the mob. He pulled one out and sat on it. "Don't worry, Carrot, I'm staying here too." He took out his silver cigar case, selected a smoke and lit it. "Sit down, son. This will take a while."

He puffed in silence for several moments then. "They control the Ankh side of the river of course," he said. "That's their home ground." *'My home is there too - and my wife .'*

Carrot must have seen the thought in his face. "I'm sure Lady Sybil will be all right, sir. They wouldn't harm a lady."

"That's right, she's one of them. Or at least they think she is." Sam relaxed, but not much. "No, Carrot, they won't bother Sybil. Our men on the other hand..." Sam Vimes face locked into a mask of stone as he thought about the possibilities.

Carrot could offer no reassurance. The men at Kingsway could be in serious trouble and they both knew it. He watched his commander worriedly, like a mountaineer eying a crest of overhanging snow wondering if it will hold. If Makepeace, Bauxite and Easy didn't turn up safe and sound something terrible would happen. Mr. Vimes would see to that.


	8. Chapter 8

Sam Vimes had gone off to find his men - and others. Saul moved away talking to his officers. Havelock Vetinari turned to the remaining Vimes. "How did you become involved in this situation, Lord Simon?"

"Lord?" an unaccustomed flicker of surprise showed on that stony countenance. "Oh, yes of course. Let's just say I have a vested interest in the stability of Ankh-Morpork, my lord."

Vetinari found himself avoiding the middle Vimes' eye, most people did. The Uberwaldians had a saying: 'When you look into the Abyss it looks into you.' When the Abyss looked into Stony Sim it cringed.

A powerful cloud of expensive scent presaged the arrival of Lonely, Stony Sim's faithful satellite. As one they turned to the weasely little man unconvincingly dressed as a gentleman's gentleman. He had a number of other men, even more disreputable in appearance, behind him. "I rounded up a few of the boys as you asked, Mr. Sim," he reported. "But Mr. Spearchucker -"

"Wants to know what the devil you're playing at, Stony," said Jonesi Spearchucker, the Thieves' Guild's current enforcer.

He was an imposing and intimidating figure nearly seven feet tall with a breadth of shoulder that forced him to go sideways through standard doorways. His skin was a velvety blue-black that made him a hazard to navigation at night - of course Stony Sim could be effectively invisible in broad daylight in the middle of an empty square.

Spearchucker's face looked like it had been hewn out of a block of obsidian and his eyes glinted hard edged as diamonds. He was in addition impeccably dressed in the latest uptown fashion. None of which helped in the slightest when face to face with Stony Sim, who somehow managed to loom over a man a full foot and odd number of inches taller than himself.

"Mr. Sim has volunteered his assistance in the current emergency," Vetinari said smoothly, breaking the tension between the two men. "Should the Guild see their way to doing the same I would be most grateful."

Spearchucker contemplated that. "That's only good if you win, my lord." Vetinari flashed him one of his brief smiles. "Right," said the enforcer as if it had been a convincing argument - which indeed it was. "What did you have in mind?"

"Our course of action is still undecided," Vetinari answered. "We are presently at the intelligence collecting stage."

"Vimes is sending out his coppers," Sim put in, "but there are places coppers don't go and things they don't hear."

"Gotcha," said Spearchucker. "Right, boys, let's do some digging?"

Vetinari felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to look down at a wiry little woman with a gimlet eye and graying hair screwed into a tight bun. "Ah, Mrs. Camphor."

"Havelock. It's past eleven, have you had your tea?"

"Er, no," he admitted, adding defensively; "My normal routine has been somewhat disrupted."

"Yes, I know," answered Mrs. Silvia Camphor nee Vimes. "All the more reason to keep your strength up." She took him by the elbow and steered him firmly towards a shop front with a frosted glass window etched with the word 'Teas' in foot high letters and a lilac bush painted on the door. Drumknott followed like Vetinari's shadow.

A bell chimed as they entered a small and rather twee room crowded with small tables covered with lace trimmed purple cloths and surrounded by basket chairs with matching cushions. A small, plump lady - very much a lady in fact - in a lacy lavender pinafore emerged from some inner fastness and froze in her tracks staring. Vetinari gave her a little half smile and courteous bow and the blood rose brightly in her face

"Ah, Miss Gilpin," Silvie Camphor said briskly. "An egg custard and three cups of Lord Green tea, please." The proprietess failed to move. "Now, if you don't mind," Silvie added with an extra edge. Miss. Gilpin blinked to life, blushed harder, bobbed a curtsey to Vetinari and vanished.

They took the table in front of the window where they could see what was going on in the street through the big etched letters. "Has he been keeping to his diet, Mr. Drumknott?" Silvie asked unfolding her napkin and putting it in her lap.

"Yes, Mrs. Camphor," said the secretary.

"None of that bread and water nonsense?" she persisted.

"No, Mrs. Camphor."

Vetinari was moved to enter a mild protest. "I am not a child, Mrs. Camphor."

"You're as irresponsible as one when it comes to your health." she answered crisply.

Patrician and secretary exchanged the resigned looks of men forced by courtesy - and in this case sheer force of character - to submit to the unreasonable notions of womankind regarding things like regular meals, washing up, and the like.

Miss Gilpin reappeared with a tray bearing a petty china tea set, painted with sprays of lilac, and an egg custard in a matching bowl. She placed the last before Vetinari with hands that trembled slightly. He gave her a quick upward glance and smile of thanks. She nearly spilled the tea.

Silvie shooed her away and poured for them herself. "Eat your custard, Havelock."

He picked up his spoon. "Yes, Mrs. Camphor."

Sunlight flashed across the dim tap room as Corporal Mallowan Makepeace entered, Constable Bauxite looming behind, followed by young Jack Easy.

Sam Vimes' chair overturned as he jumped to his feet and Captain Carrot closed his eyes briefly to breath a prayer of thanks to the god of coppers, whoever he might be. "Report!" Vimes snapped, sharp as a mother greeting an over-curfew youngster.

Makepeace snapped to and saluted with a smartness uncommon in the Watch. he was in fact one of a handful of survivors of the old Day Watch, one of the happy few who was neither corrupt nor a bootlicker - which went a long way towards explaining why he'd still been a constable at forty.

"Buggy tells me you already know about the military coup, sir. Young Easy and I were walking the Phedre-Salis-Prout beat when we were intercepted on Phedre Road by a squad of soldier boys who leveled crossbows and demanded we surrender. I was still attempting to acertain who was demanding our surrender and why - and getting very confused answers - when Constable Bauxite came charging out of Five-Seven yard." He turned to the troll. "Tell Mr. Vimes what you told me Bauxite."

Stone fist clunked against iron helmet (trolls had finally gotten the hang of saluting without knocking themselves cold) "Suh. Suh, I was watchin' the desk like the Corp told me when these here Urgetch -"

"Language, Constable!" Corporal Makepeace interrupted.

"Yes, suh. Sorry, suh. These *gentlemen* in soldier suits walk in like they own the place. I ask what they wants - nice and polite - and one uses 'Abusive Language to an Officer'. I tells him not to and he repeats the offense so I knocked a couple 'a head together. The ones I don' knock run away. Then I think maybe the Corp and Easy are in trouble and go looking for them. Seeing armed offenders threatening my mates I gave warning 'Put them bows down!" I shouted. They didn't so I charged them and they ran away." Most people did when charged by a troll, realizing it was that or be trampled by size 88 solid stone feet.

"Well done, constable," Vimes said. "What did you do then, Mal?"

"Well, sir it seemed pretty clear that something had hit the windmill but I wasn't sure what." Corporal Makepeace resumed. "I decided it was best we keep together and report to the Yard." Sam nodded approval. "Trouble was there were soldier boys covering all the bridges. It was at that point I began to suspect a coup. There's been a lot of talk as you know, sir."

Vimes nodded again, this time grimly. "His lordship thought Colonel Vimes and his men would put a stop to such notions. Seems he overrated the intelligence of or aristocratic citizens."

"To be fair, sir, not all of them seem in on it," said Makepeace. "We commandeered as small boat from the Phedre docks and rowed across - Easy and I that is, Bauxite had to wade."

"Very well done, Constable." said Vimes, genuinely impressed.

"Not so bad," the troll mumbled, shifting his weight bashfully.

"We soused him off right away, sir," Makepeace assured his commander. "Anyway, once Bauxite was all squared away we made our way to the Yard by back streets ending up right across from the watch-house only to find it occupied by troops - or so I presumed from the traffic in and out. While we were watching a group of lordships emerged who I took to be the leaders of the enterprise. The Duke of Eorl, Lord Selachi, Viscount Skater and Lord Monflather."

Vimes frowned. "What about Rust?"

"Not there, sir, nor was Venturi. The Yard was clearly a wash, I figured we'd best get ourselves across to the Morpork side and see what was happening there but of course those bridges were guarded too. I was about ready to go to ground where we were when Buggy Swires showed up and told us the Watch was still active and regrouping here at the Bucket."

"So you found yourselves another boat?"

"Er, no sir. Fact is we walked - or rather ran." All eyes fell to the Kings Way men's stockinged feet.

"Ah," said Vimes. "Captain Carrot, make a note to reimburse Corporal Makepeace and Lance Constable Easy the price of a pair of good boots each. Oh, and a fifty dollar bonus this month to Constable Bauxite for actions above and beyond the call of duty."

"Thank you, sir!"

"Suh!" Clunk.

"Get yourselves a beer," Vimes told them. "Wait, where's Buggy?"

"Oh, he'd got himself a fresh pigeon, sir, so I told him to scout out the Ankh side," Makepeace answered. "I suspect their hold there isn't quite as secure as they'd like. Frankly I don't see Nap Hill or Dimwell or the Soaks tamely following a lot of chinless lordships in fancy uniforms."

"Good thinking Makepeace," Vimes said approvingly. *'Note to self; make that man a sergeant.'*


	9. Chapter 9

Sam Vimes unrolled a map on one of the tea tables. Silvie joined Vetinari as he rose to join the three Vimes men around it.

Saul looked at her and his face dropped in almost comical dismay. "Silvie?" She cracked one of her rare smiles and moved into his arms. "Oh gods! My baby sister has gray hair!"

She snorted. "Says pot to kettle! I'm past forty, Saul Fortytude Vimes, I've a right to be gray - especially in this city!"

"Yes, but the last time I saw you, you were still in short skirts!"

"Time marches on, Saul. Speaking of which -" The men took the hint and addressed themselves to the map.

Simon perched a pair of horn-rimmed half specs on the undistinguished Vimes nose and gave his brothers the Look over them. "Yes, I wear glasses. I am a touch farsighted. Any comments?"

Being Vimes the Look did not have it's usual effect (ie: damp boots) but Saul and Sam both shook their heads. Not even a Vimes goes out of his way to annoy another Vimes.

"Gather round, gentlemen," Saul said and his officers, Carrot and Angua, Spearchucker and Lonely all drew closer to look over the Vimeses shoulders. "Sam?"

"According to my lads - and ladies - barricades are going up all over the city," he responded, indicating points on the map. "Easy Street and Five Ways, Dolly Sisters and even lower Short Street. Buggy tells me Nap Hill's walled itself in and Dimwell and the Soak are blocked across the river. So far their lordships have contented themselves with issuing decrees but if we don't move fast it could be the 'Glorious' Twenty-fifth and sixth all over again."

Vetinari admired the way Sam Vimes could vocalize apostrophes. Saul raised an eyebrow. "Glorious what?"

"'Revolution'," and there were the apostrophes again, "that put Mad Lord Snapcase in power."

The other eyebrow joined its fellow. "Sounds like a bad move."

"It was," Sam Vimes bit off the words.

It had been indeed, Vetinari silently agreed. And he was damned if he was going to allow his city to go back to those murderously inefficient days!

"So far no troops have been sighted beyond Small Gods and lower Short Street. Most seem to be milling around the palace."

"Damnfools," said Saul. "You sure Rust isn't running this pitiful excuse for an insurrection?"

"Positive." That was Simon Vimes. He flashed a small chill smile at his brother. "According to my people both Rust and Venturi refused to have anything to do with it and are under house arrest."

"Hmph! my respect for the man increases - reluctantly," said Saul.

"He did meet you, sir," said the Adjutant, with a little smile.

"So did Venturi." Sam looked at his brother thoughtfully.

Rust, Vetinari reflected, was a military fool - but one with a good sense of self preservation in the battlefield of politics, a trait Venturi shared.

"Their lordships have thrown all the Guild heads, except for the Assassins of course, off the city council," Simon Vimes continued in his cool voice. "Mr. Boggis - that's the head of the Thieves' Guild, Saul - and his officers have been thrown into the Tanty."

Vetinari winced. Oh gods! It was hard to believe anyone could be so completely lacking political sense.

"Excellent," said Saul Vimes unexpectedly. "That means you will have the legitimate government square behind you, my lord."

The same thought had, of course, occurred to Vetinari. It was not one that would have struck Sam Vimes. Clearly his elder brother was rather more politically savvy. Interesting but perhaps not surprising given his past.

"Our people are seriously pi - annoyed," Mr. Spearchucker put in. "They are, I am told, taking what retribution they can off of any soldier who strays into the back-streets and alleys."

"And sooner or later their lordships will notice that too," Sam Vimes said grimly. "I think we can count on them doing something stupid and violent."

Oh yes. Vetinari nodded to himself. Vimes - his Vimes - might not have a political mind but he could read people like a book.

"So we've got to move fast," Saul resumed. "Happily the leadership of this fiasco of a coup is all in one place, all we have to do is take the palace."

Vetinari was forced to clear his throat. "That might be somewhat difficult. I have of course taken normal precautions against infiltration or invasion. I promise you there is no unguarded postern or convenient underground tunnel."

"Unless you're a rat," said Sam Vimes.

The Patrician nodded. "As you say, Sir Samuel."

Saul Vimes gave him the raised eyebrow. "What, no bolt holes or hidden escape routes."

"Filled in, I fear," Vetinari answered.

"But a very secure dungeon," said Sam Vimes dryly. "Lord Vetinari's has his heart in his job."

The Patrician gave him a quick smile of appreciation. Surprising Vimes remembered that conversation, he'd been quite distraught at the time - with excellent reason of course.

Simon Vimes cleared his throat gently. "Some of us have made a careful study of his lordship's precautions and come up with various strategies for getting round them." He gave Vetinari the Look. "Quite a lot of nice loot in the palace, my lord."

"So there is," Vetinari agreed. Not that anybody but Stony Sim would have even dreamed of trying to lift any of it! "How very fortunate."

"Isn't it though."

The Patrician drifted a few paces back so as to get a better view of the Vimes brothers bent intently over the map. Three expert craftsmen planning a complicated but not particularly difficult job of work. The sense of tightly leashed power about to be unleashed was tangible, filling the small room with a frisson of tense excitement.

Vetinari controlled a sigh. There would undoubtedly be any number of pieces needing picking up after these three were through with his city. Fortunate they were on his side, or rather on Ankh-Morpork's.

He remembered clearly the first time the Vimes family had thrust themselves upon his notice. It had been a dozen or more years ago, shortly after he'd become Patrician. In those days there'd been a second soi-disant 'Assassin's Guild' an assemblage of murderers and thugs without style or principle, whose use of the proud and ancient name had appalled all genuine Assassins. But they had been too useful to the likes of Winder and Snapcase for anything to be done about it. A young Vetinari had been revolving various schemes in his mind when the problem had, rather abruptly, been taken out of his hands.

It seemed the sons and daughters of Watch Corporal Thomas Vimes finally found out how their father had really died. The consequences had been appalling, even to Vetinari.

A Master Thief, a Watch sergeant and four respectable matrons had taken on more than a hundred vicious killers. The final reckoning had taken place in the Guild's own subterranean headquarters. Sixty-one of the murderers had been killed outright. Half again as many severely wounded and those few who managed to escape the massacre ran fast and far. Certainly Vetinari had failed to find any of them. Ever.

Vetinari could still see at will the sight that had met his eyes all those years ago; the cavernous cellar awash with blood and bodies, some still moaning. The red print of a woman's hand upon a post had particularly impressed itself upon his mind's eye. He often wondered just which of the Vimes sisters had left it.

Vetinari been young, and badly shaken, but that was no excuse for what he'd done. The women, he'd decided, were unlikely to let loose their inner demons again. They were wives and mothers and respectable business women. Stony Sim could be controlled through the new Thieves' Guild, that left Sergeant Samuel Vimes of the Watch to be dealt with. And deal with him Vetinari had - by destroying the Watch. He'd assigned incompetents to officer it and subtly encouraged malfeasance in the ranks. Good men resigned in droves - all but Sam Vimes.

Sam Vimes who couldn't imagine being anything but a copper, who'd hung on with the dogged strength Vetinari was coming to recognize as little short of a force of nature - but at a price. He'd turned to drink to numb the pain, to more drink to help him forget what he'd fallen to and even more drink to forget that he wanted to forget.

But Sam Vimes could survive anything, even despair. He'd risen from his own whiskey soaked ashes as powerful and elemental as Ankh-Morpork herself and gone from strength to strength since. And Vetinari had found him useful. No, more than useful, _vital_ to his plans for _their_ city.

Granted those years in gutter had contributed in no small part to Vimes' value. Vetinari could have forgiven himself, easily, had he hurled Vimes there with that intent - but he hadn't. He had acted out of _fear_ out of sheer animal emotion rather than rational thought. He'd been no better than Snapcase who'd sentenced John Keel to death for the crime of being a genius in managing men.

Vetinari had tried to save Keel and failed, it was one of the two genuine regrets of his life. A valuable man had been thrown away in a moment of fear or pique. He'd sworn to himself that he would never do such a thing. And then he had. That was his second regret. Every May he silently asked John Keel's forgiveness for being too slow and too late. Someday, perhaps, he'd ask for Sam Vimes' - preferably from behind a thick wall!

"You gentlemen won't be needing me," he said. "I believe I will have a look outside."

---

Havelock Vetinari stopped dead in the doorway of the 'Lilac Bush'. Kicklebury Street was packed solid, and this wasn't Ankh-Morpork's famous roaming mob looking for entertainment this mob was armed with sporting bows and swords, rusty military souvenirs and sharp or pointy kitchen utensils. Oh dear, a popular uprising on top of a military coup - this simply was not his day. Then somebody in the crowd caught sight of him and raised a cheer, the next moment the entire mass of people was in full roar.

They couldn't be cheering him. His entire system of government was based on being feared and disliked. Was that really his name they were chanting? He didn't need a mob. He didn't want a mob. Whatever was he going to do with them?

"Better the devil you know," said Sam Vimes at his side.

Vetinari turned to him in something close to desperation. "This is most inconvenient, Sir Samuel. Fighting in the streets is what we are trying to avoid!"

"Agreed. Been there, done that, got the singlet." Vimes threw down his dog-end and ground it into the cobbles with a heel before striding forward. The attention of the mob shifted from Vetinari to Vimes as he marched to the center of the street and raised his truncheon like a scepter - a simile he most definitely would NOT have appreciated.

Silence rippled backwards through the crowd, every eye fixed attentively on Sam Vimes. He lowered the truncheon slowly, not taking his thousand yard stare from the front ranks, who were beginning to wilt slightly. "Sergeant Major!"

"SIR!"

"Where did these people come from?"

"THE CITY, SIR! THEY ARE VOLUNTEERS, SIR!"

"Right!" said a brave soul a few rows back and out immediate range of the Vimes eyeball. "We're city militia we are."

"We're not having any mincing lordships telling US what to do!" declared a woman with very wide spaced eyes and an apron full of fish scales waving a formidable cleaver. A general mutter of agreement rose from the masses behind.

"Well put, Verity!" said Sam Vimes, getting a bit of a laugh. Then he tucked his truncheon under his arm took out a cigar and a match. The crowd watched respectfully as he lit up and blew a small, white smoke ring. "Right. A bunch of fancy-pants lordships from the Ankh side of the river think they can tell Morporkians what to do, do they? 'Course you won't take that lying down, neither would I. Neither AM I." He freighted the last two words with enough emphasis to sink a ship - even in the Ankh.

Complete silence.

"Thing is Lord Vetinari here and I don't want any more bloodshed than we can help. We aim to go right to the top and put these upstart lordships in their place before people start getting hurt. Isn't that so, my lord?"

Vetinari recognized his cue. "Exactly right, Sir Samuel," he answered pitching his voice to carry.

People shifted and looked at each other, agreeing it would be better if nobody got hurt - especially them.

"Lord Vetinari brought Colonel Vimes and his men here specifically to take care of this problem for him. I say we all stand back and let the professionals do their job," said Sir Samuel.

"Sir!" It was Verity Pushpram again. "Sir, Nobby told me this Colonel Vimes is a brother of yours."

"That's right, a real Cockbill Street tough!" Another titter riffled through the crowd that was beginning to look less and less like a mob and more and more like a mass of understandably concerned citizens "You call yourself city militia do you?" Vimes continued. "Well fine. I'm the Commander of the Watch and I'm giving you your orders. I want the lot of you to go home and hold yourselves ready if we should call on you. Got that?"

There were nods, even some salutes. Vimes turned his back on them and strolled towards Vetinari. Behind him the crowd milled as it dispersed down various side streets and alleys.

"Very nicely done, Sir Samuel," Vetinari said, quite sincerely.

Vimes cracked a grin. "Never thought I'd hear you being cheered - my lord."

"Nor I, Sir Samuel." Nor, Vetinari continued in the privacy of his own thoughts, did I expect to see a man handle a potentially violent mob so expertly ever again. It had been like watching Keel at work all those years ago. The same genius combination of instinct and reason.

He watched Vimes go back into the tearoom. Strange, he'd never noticed before how like Keel, Vimes was. The way he moved and the way he stood still. The way he looked into shadows instead of letting his eye slide by them.... Even his voice had the same steely rasp when raised in command. Interesting. Vimes had been something of a protege of Keel's hadn't he? He would seem to have learned a great deal in those few days.


End file.
